ktravula – a travelogue!

Etisalat Reads in Lagos

WP_20140222_004WP_20140222_009WP_20140222_012WP_20140222_017WP_20140222_019WP_20140222_027WP_20140222_028WP_20140222_013WP_20140222_020WP_20140222_010Here are pictures from the Etisalat-organized event at the Freedom Park, Lagos Island, on Saturday, to introduce to the Nigerian (and global audience) the shortlisted writers for the inaugural Etisalat Literature Prize. The shortlisted writers were NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names (2013); Yewande Omotosho, author of  Bomboy (2011); and Karen Jennings, author of Finding Soutbek (2012).

The winner of the prize, declared yesterday, February 23rd, was NoViolet Bulawayo. She was presented the check of £15,000. She will also be attending The Etisalat Fellowship at the prestigious University of East Anglia, mentored by Professor Giles Foden, author of the Last King of Scotland.

Other people in these shots are Ayodele Olofintuade, Ayodele Morocco-Clarke, Lola Shoneyin, Victor Ehikhamenor, Ama Ata Aidoo, Toni Kan, Femi Morgan, and Kole Omotosho, among many others.

Etisalat Reads in Lagos was published on February 24th, 2014, with the tags , , , under the Art, Literature category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Four Days a Father

This is a cliche, I realize, that there are no books to teach you about how to become a good father. This is probably true of everything else: being a good husband, being a good wife, being a good teacher, etc. They can only share experiences of others, and suggest coping or improvement mechanisms. The rest – and the most important work – has to be done by the subject himself/herself, through plodding grit.

altAtBD9XUv6HRcOXuPjLM6EWL8H5rPmxl3xdMsqO4XdoO_I’ve been a father for four days, and I don’t know how to describe it. (To be fair, I’m still at an advantage compared to other new fathers as I haven’t set physical eyes on the little rascal that has now come to turn my wife’s breasts into a mammary tap. I was there in the labour room only via Skype, and the first photos I took of him, taken about thirty seconds after he emerged from her body, adjusting his tiny eyes to the concept of light, have gripped me since). It’s a slow but intense bonding experience.

“So, what is it like to be a father?” I’ve been asked.

“It’s the weirdest, beautiful and complex feeling in the world. Here’s a little, helpless, creature that I helped to make, and I must now raise and protect with all I have.” I respond.

It will get more complex after I’ve handled regular diaper change, and a number of sleepless nights. Perhaps a little more intense after I’ve held him in my hands and against my chest for a number of hours.  But it would never ever be less beautiful, like the face of that sleeping child.

Four Days a Father was published on February 18th, 2014, with the tags , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Poem for a Newborn Child*

Love peeps through the screen, many miles away
In rough, rumbled, beats of a new toddler’s heart;
Dark, with restless tiny fingers gripping winter’s tray.

Weird happy tingling pokes of a creation complete.
Commenced with many yells, and now another start:
New breath into a complex palette and dizzying street.

Eniafe, the one we wanted; the stylish, fanciful guest;
And his father’s edge in repose; art in blood of new hues.
His mother’s rock chiseled in the dreams of harvest.

The world will not end. Not now, for the fresh terrain,
and tomorrow, nods to better selves and better views.
Here is a new earth, embodied, like a bitty human grain.

He is here, bouncing. He is here, bouncing. He is here.
He is here. He is here, bouncing. He is here, bouncing.

___

* Born Febrary 14, at around 4.23pm, in Minneapolis Minnesota. Mother and son are doing okay

Poem for a Newborn Child* was published on February 16th, 2014, with the tags , , , under the Art, Literature category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Two Writers on Sexuality and Morality

Lola Shoneyin (Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives) and Toni Kan (Nights of the Creaking Bed) will, on February 15, head a public discussion on writing sex, sexuality, and morality. Find the details below:

12701_10151963897808131_184968217_n

Two Writers on Sexuality and Morality was published on February 4th, 2014, with the tags , , , , under the Art, Literature, News category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

We Must Free Our Imagination

For those who haven’t been following the matter (or who didn’t know there was any matter to begin with), the coming out of Kenyan-born writer Binyavanga Wainaina as gay added a personal and human dimension to the culture wars brewing currently on the continent on the wings of religious fervour, bigotry, and intolerance on the one side, and that of freedom, compassion, and inclusiveness on the other.

In this six-part YouTube video series, recorded and released after the coming out declaration was made, the author makes a case for the expansion of the imagination – beyond the limits of the boxes imposed by colonialism, religion, and our own cultural myopia.

Must watch.

Also: Here, a recommended read, from Think Africa Press

 

We Must Free Our Imagination was published on January 30th, 2014, with the tags , , under the Literature, News, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.