Boats of the Future with Marit Tornqvist

At the Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi, children from the Netherlands School Society joined their counterparts from the Spring Valley Educational Centre in a session convened by Dutch Illustrator Marit Tornqvist. 

Marit has worked on the books of popular Swedish author Astride Lingdren, illustrating   titles such as Goran’s Great Escape, In the Land of Twilight, A Calf for Christmas, and many others. 

The children met Marit at the National Museums of Kenya’s Discovery Room; an apt venue, for there was plenty of fun and fact to discover during the session. 

The children received a surprise visit from Mr. Joost Reintjes, the Dutch ambassador to Kenya. Being the diplomat that he is, Mr. Joost introduced the children to each other’s cultures, explaining Holland to the Kenyan children and Kenya to the Dutch children.

Mr. Kennedy Musumba from Kenya’s Ministry of Water, himself a performer of sorts, had the children in plenty of stitches with his tales about water. The children sang together, and then amidst hoots of laughter, opined that bilharzia was caused by snails and that one should not “help themselves” in the bush because one is likely to find a hyena there. 

Marit Tornqvist then engaged the children through a captivating weaving together of art forms into one finely-textured, richly-filled basket. The children were literally spellbound as Marit’s animations sprung to life. 

It was the story of a sad little girl who sat on a long pole in the middle of the sea, and who refused to get comforted by birds or balloons or curious, curious people. She sat on her pole through the summer and winter, sat on it and watched ships capsize during thunderstorms. The little girl was inconsolable. 

Marit’s narration, the brilliant animations, and the audio effects all teleported the children to the middle of the sea. They were right there with the sad little girl. They too were sad for a few moments, their gazes trapped by the lapping of water in the sea’s mouth, the dancing of birds in the frills of the lacy sky, and the drifting away of curious people in their curious, fruit-laden boats. 

When they arrived from their trip to the sea, the children were given paper and craft material, and asked to draw their own landscapes, with water as the central theme. 

About the session, Mr. Joost Reintjes said, “It is a remarkable way to bring cultures together. Children get together and learn the issues of water, and they play. It is important not to look at learning from a narrow teaching perspective, but to infuse it with culture and art.”

Betsy, the Director of the Netherlands School Society in Nairobi, echoed the Ambassador’s sentiments, adding that in this kind of holistic learning, children were unlikely to forget their lessons. 

The children had their own opinions about the session too. Bernard Kamau from the Spring Valley Educational Centre described how much fun the learning had been, adding that the lesson he would invariably take home with him was simple: water is life. His friend Mark Chege agreed and added that from the session, he had learnt not to be selfish.

This report was sent in by Okwiri Oduor.

The Voice Interviews: Chibundu Onuzo

In this interview with Ainehi Edoro of Brittle Paper, Chibundu Onuzo, guest author at GCLF 2012, speaks about her writing and her new book The Spider King's Daughter. 

Why did you choose to set your first novel in Lagos?

I grew up there so I know the city quite well and I suppose with your first novel, you want to be writing about home territory. There are so many things you have to grapple with as an inexperienced writer and adding an unfamiliar setting is just an extra difficulty. It’s hard enough trying to evoke a place you know.

I’d never have thought of Lagos as a city of love, but you convinced me. What made you think of a Lagos romance?

Have you ever been to Tantalizers or Mr Biggs? Lagos is the Nigerian capital of romance. Every guy is a toaster and every girl is a babe in Eko.

Abike and Runner G are the two love birds. Can I confess that my favorite of the two is Runner G? I find his strength in the face of so much suffering both sexy and inspiring. Can you tell us how that character came to life?

I just started telling the story from his point of view. His voice came naturally to me because I think in personality, we’re quite similar.  You say he’s strong in the face of suffering but some readers have complained about his passivity in the face of adversity.  If I suddenly woke up poor, I’d hope to be like the hawker, I’d be capable of eking out some sort of living and putting away a few hundred Naira a week. If Abike suddenly woke up poor and was forced to become a hawker, she would organise all the other hawkers and form a hawkers' union and become the State Commissioner for the informal economy by the time she was done.

Why doesn’t Runner G have a “real” name?

I couldn’t find one. I just got to the end and nothing fit so I left him nameless and then his namelessness became a wider metaphor for the faceless poor in Lagos. When I was in primary school, there was an ice cream seller I used to buy ice lollies from almost every day and till today, I don’t know his name.

Isn’t Abike kind of a bitch? Lol.  Not really. When viewed in the context of her childhood, she’s actually quite humane, maybe even more humane than the hawker who had role models and a close family structure. I always tell harsh readers that any kind act you see Abike perform (such as the way she stands up for her driver) must be magnified  because of her upbringing.

My love affair with Abike is a bit different. I feel really drawn to the very things that made Runner G have such a hard time being her lover–her snarkiness, snobbishness, “sharp mouth,” her queen-of-my-domain mentality. Was her character difficult to write? Did you have to tap into your inner bitchiness?  

Giving Abike a narrative voice started off as a plot device. I only had one narrator in my first attempt at the book. As I’ve mentioned, the hawker is in many ways quite a passive character so not much had happened by page thirty. He was just walking round Lagos and describing things and musing. So when Abike came along, she was in the worst instances, not much more than bullet points and in the best instances, very, very obnoxious. So she certainly went through many rounds of editing.

Abike’s mother is a Nollywood actress. Your description of her odd ways is prettyhilarious. Could you talk a little bit about the Nollywood reference? What is it about Nollywood that made you want to say something about it in Spider King’s Daugther?

Abike’s mother is not my only reference to Nollywood in the book. The way I’ve structured the scenes borrows quite heavily from Nollywood filming techniques. If you’ve ever watched a Nollywood movie, the main character will walk in on her husband cheating on her, the camera will zoom to her eyes widening in horror, then the scene will change and we have to wait to find out what happens next. I do this kind of thing quite a few times in The Spider King’s Daughter.

You touch on depression a little bit–Runner G’s mother is a depressive. Were you trying to speak to the popular misconception that Africans don’t suffer depression?

I don’t really like the word depression. There are many shades and manifestations of sadness and depression is such a blanket term. The hawker’s mother has a very deep and quiet melancholia. Her shade of sadness would be mauve. But yes, Africans just like all human beings get depressed.

The story starts out like a Rom-fiction. But things gradually get dark. Were you going for  that? Would you say Spider King’s Daughter is a romance fiction, thriller, or a romance thriller?

None of the above really. You’ll have to come up with a few more.

I think it’s awesome. It’s fun to see what Abike and Runner G leave out or include in their separate accounts of a particular event. You did a good job of not making the telling and retelling tiresome for the reader? How did you do that?

Abike and the hawker are very different people. If my sister and I tell the story of the same event, the second time will definitely bore you but the hawker and Abike notice different things and they lay emphasis on different things because their experiences of life are so different.

Abike and Runner G definitely have great chemistry. But would you say that their romance was pretty PG-13? Why didn’t you give us a bit more steaminess? I don’t mean a 50 Shades kinda steamy. Just a bit more touching, kissing, making out, etc.

It seemed an accurate amount of steaminess to me. From what I remember (and it wasn’t that long ago), secondary school relationships in Nigeria were pretty vapourless. I don’t  know about your school but in my boarding school, kissing your boyfriend was quite a big deal. It didn’t often happen when you were ‘having something.’  You would normally wait until you were officially going out. One of my very close friends who was four years my senior, told me before he kissed his girlfriend for the first time. He planned it a couple of days in advance. You had to be quite savvy about these things and find a private place because there were always teachers prowling around who would swoop down to separate couples if they saw them holding hands for too long.

The ending. Wow! What can I say? I didn’t see it coming. The story takes a rather unexpected turn, leaving things a bit unresolved. Is there going to be a part two?

No part two or at least none is planned.  Even though I refer to Nollywood and borrow some techniques, this is not a Nollywood production.

Read Brittle Paper's review of The Spider King's Daughter

Chibundu Onuzo started writing novels and short stories at the age of 10 and less than a decade later, she became the youngest woman ever to be signed to Faber and Faber, which has published books by 12 Nobel Laureates and 6 Man Booker prize winners.

The 2012 Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi

For 25 years, the Hay Festival has brought together writers and readers from across the world in a celebration of ideas and writing. The festival runs in 15 countries. On the continent, it pitches tent in Kenya and South Africa.

On Thursday the 13th of September 2012, the Storymoja Hay Festival officially kicked off in Nairobi. The theme of this year’s festival is Imagine the World. Perhaps in acknowledgment of this, the festival is held at the alluring National Museums of Kenya.

The first day of the festival was mostly dedicated to children.

Lemm Sissay and Imtiaz Dharker held workshops for writing and performance poetry, while JC Niala and Paula Kahumbu showed children how to make their own puppets. Young readers got the opportunity to meet authors Lauri Kubuitsile and Lola Shoneyin whose book The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was recently nominated for the Nigeria Prize for Literature.

Caine-nominated writer Lily Mabura communed with young writers in a Manuscript Doctor session, and Dutch illustrator Marit Tornqvist fused storytelling and visual arts to kindle enthusiasm about water in both Dutch and Kenyan children.

At the Publish Your Own Book session, little children became great authors when, with the help of writers and illustrators, they produced their very own story booklets.

In another workshop, Precious Williams, Dinaw Mengestu and Ross van Horn discussed the theme of displacement and identity in creative writing.

Elsewhere at the festival, comedian Eric Omondi delivered career advice to young adults, while novelist Giles Foden held a creative writing masterclass session.

The Storymoja Hay Festival ended on Sunday the 16^th of September 2012. Report by Okwiri Oduor.

Sola Alamutu: GCLF Facilitator

Sola Alamutu is the brain behind Children and the Environment (CATE), an organisation that creates awareness in children about the importance of the environment. She is a co-author of CATE Saves the Ikopi Rainforest, a children’s book that won the 2004 ANA Prize for Children’s Literature. Alamutu, author of two activity books for children aged four to eight and nine to fourteen.

She will facilitate the Children Creative Workshops at the GCLF, along with Polly Alakija. 

Mazi Nwonwu: On his Farafina Workshop Experience

Mazi Nwonwu strikes a pose

It was my third application. I paused a while before I typed the address into my mailbox. Twice before, 2010 and 2011, I had answered the call for entries for the Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop. On both occasions, I got an email informing me that though I made the long list of thirty five, I unfortunately didn’t make into the final list of fifteen.

While I was saddened by the first mail, the fact that it came from Chimamanda Adichie, whose “I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed reading your entry – and to send my best wishes for your continued writing”, eased the disappointment. For me, that mail was a tacit stamp of approval that I was on the right path. In 2011, when I got a similar response, I was mad. How can they turn me down two years in a row? Does this mean I am not good enough or have not improved at all despite my efforts? So, I penned this.

Now, you understand the reluctance with which I applied for this year’s workshop. I felt I did not need any coaching from any writer, no matter how renowned. It was easy to learn about writing, especially with the internet. Having convinced myself that I didn't need to learn from people who turned me down twice, I tried to forget about the call for entries, to ignore the nagging urge to type a small bio, copy and paste one of my numerous short stories and send another mail to Udonandu, whoever that is. 

I sent the mail. And forgot all about it. Instead, I put my effort into getting a place in the Fidelity Bank sponsored programmed headlined by Helon Habila. I didn’t get into that one and no mail came to tell me to continue writing or anything. The depression came then, followed by the usual questions: what the hell am I doing pretending to be a writer? Should I really be wasting my life struggling to write? What have I gained pretending to be a writer? Am I a fraud?

Unlike the past, the depression did not last too long as I found reasons to keep writing and to interact with my writing family—we call ourselves Nerdz 21. Through Blackberry, Nerdz 21 talk about everything; there, I got hints about the Farafina shortlist mails. First, Richard Ali announced that he was in, then Abdulaziz Abdulaziz. I was still hailing their success when an incoming mail alert beeped. I stared at the Farafina Trust address for a while, just dreading another rejection. I had just announced my own good news when Samuel Oluwatosin Kolawole,  indicated that he too is in. We celebrated. 900 entries from across Africa and four people from our group of twenty five made it, worthy of some virtual champagne popping if you ask me. This post is not about Nerdz 21 or its membership, so let’s take a step back and continue along the right path.

Participants at the Workshop

I should tell you how I packed for the workshop, the books I took with me and how I got to Waterside Hotel in Lekki Phase 1 to find most of the participants already waiting before my Lagos-based body got there, but that won’t serve much here. Let’s skip that; what I won’t skip is the hotel room. 

Richard, Abdulaziz and Tosin, my fellow Nerdz, greeted me just as I stepped into the first floor lobby. We all walked to my room near the end of the hallway and they, cheeky guys, stood back as I marvelled at the large room I would be spending ten days in. The room is almost as big as my sitting room and the mirrored wardrobe is one I was sure my wife would bug me about when she sees it, and she did when she came visiting: can’t we get something like this, it’s fine o. 

I love that room, still do. I even miss it. Now I shouldn’t be talking about hotel rooms with nostalgia, but I recall us Nerdz lounging in that room that first day, planning how we would rock the ten-day holiday. That was before the classes started and the intensity of the work caught up with us.

Thinking about it now, I can’t help but wonder if the facilitators had not planned to ensure we work hard for the comfort provided. I remember complaining to a friend that the time I had spent sleeping on the large bed in my room wouldn’t have amounted to ten hours, and this was five days into the workshop. We had piles of stories to read, assignments to do and little time to do it. Ok, I am doing it again, running ahead of you. 

From the first day at the workshop, preconceived notions started falling like ripe mangoes whose host branches are under the ministrations of an eager youth. First, though the introductions did not say much about the abilities of the workshop participants, once we started reviewing entry stories, the quality of each person started to emerge, and the mark for each person was astonishingly high. In the group were Nigerians, a Nigerian-American, a Ghanaian, a Cameroonian, an Indian American and a South Africa based Nigerian. We had published authors and others whose work had been accepted for publication, but then there were greenhorns whose workshop entries were their first stab at writing. We had people from the middle class and upper middleclass, with degrees from universities overseas and we had serious ajekpako types who are products of the worst Nigerian education could offer. With this mix, you would be forgiven for thinking there were underdogs in the group. Well there wasn’t, not one. At the end, I could not point to one person and say, he/she has a brighter future on the literary scene. It could be anyone, or everyone. 

Second, Chimamanda defied all preconceived notions about her person, we knew we were coming to see an intellectual, but met a genius. One hour after I met her, I knew I was fooling myself thinking I only came for the networking. The lessons came, flowing through her soft words and finding willing receptacles in my hungry mind. She opened my heart to the craft in ways I never thought possible and she did it not by teaching in the conventional sense, but by talking to us as equals, as writers in our own right. After Chimamanda, it was easy to flow with the other teachers: 

• Aslak Myhre, the Norwegian who showed us the dangers of allowing outsiders write what should naturally be our stories; 
• Jeffery Allen, the black American that embraces his African heritage more firmly than we do, who taught the importance of writing with confidence; 
• Robert Spillman, the American writer and publisher, who opened our eyes to the possibilities that exist for our writing and showed us not how, but why our writing should be worth something; 
• and Binyavanga Wainaina, the force of nature, whose intellect can only be experienced, not described.

From them, we learnt valuable lessons about ourselves and our place, as writers, in our communities. Beyond lessons, we bonded. I can’t recall anyone in the group who wasn’t sad when Aslak had to go back to Norway days before the end of the workshop or who wasn’t touched by his “intelligence quotient” video that the class watched and reviewed. With the other teachers, we had our goodbyes at the literary evening that marked our graduation from Farafina Trust Writing Workshop. 

It was just ten days, yet it seemed like years. In all, it took ten days to make us not just better writers, but better chroniclers of our individual realities. We have been Farafina certified, and our work henceforth will speak this truth.

The Garden City Literary Festival features writers workshops yearly. This year, the prose workshop- would be facilitated by Doreen Baingana; poetry workshop by Lola Shoneyin and the children creative workshops would be facilitated by by Sola Alamutu and Polly Alakija. 

Favourite Five: Emmanuel Iduma

Emmanuel is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and has received recognition in each genre. Emmanuel is the co-founder of Iroko Publishing, which publishes Saraba.  In 2011, Emmanuel participated in the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photography Initiative, a road trip aimed at creating photographic and written material that addresses Africa from a more individualistic viewpoint. Farad is his first novel. 

He has this to say about his favourite five (plus one) books: This is really difficult for me. So I decided to find a pattern - the best five books I've read (or reread) since 2012 began.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje: Ondaatje is a favourite of many writers, and I think it's his language, the disarming way he uses words; he makes you feel like there's something you should uncover, some meaning that you'll keep searching for. The English Patient is a book that brought me to a new relationship with language.

Girl in The Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vremeer: I think it's this book's style that drew me in. I have been keenly interested in ways in which the novel can be rendered formless and yet not losing it's linearity. So in this book by Vremeer you find that a narrative is formed around the ownership of a painting across several generations. No character's story is told in more than one chapter. Very sexy, as they say.

Dreaming In Public: Building The Occupy Movement (various) - I received my copy of this book less than a month ago, yet it has become dog-eared. Anyways, this book brought me closer to the meaning of  the global Occupy Movement. My favourite essay in the anthology is by a blogger I admire, Keguro Macharia. It's amazing how he finds  an intersection between Kiberia and Washington DC.

Fine Boys by Eghosa Imasuen: This book is a favourite because I didn't have the kind of adolescence described in the book. Then of course, Eghosa's obsession with New Englishes is endearing as well.

My Journey As A Witness by Shahidul Alam: Earlier this year my friend and boss, Emeka Okereke, returned from Amsterdam with this book, signed by Dr Alam himself. It is a collage of photographs and text by Alam taken since the '70s. Reading through, and viewing the photos, I found myself captured by the sharpness of his eyes - the fact that sometimes the only thing that should be of interest to an artist is to ensure that he speaks to, about, for, his immediate environment. Shahidul Alam is a 'majority world' photographer from Bangladesh.

Night Train To Lisbon by Pascal Mercier: I love this book because it is infinitely quotable. I will not say more.

CATE Organises CleanUP&GreenUP

Children and the Environment (CATE) is organising its Let's Do It! Mushin, Lagos as its annual Cleanup and Greenup Your Neighbourhood Campaign.

Date: Saturday, 15 September. 

The cleaning exercise is supported by CATE members and friends-green organizations like Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Keys To Wellness (KTW), Positive Development Foundation (pdf), Youth Pioneer for Development Organisation (YPDO), Youth Vision Alliance Network (YVAN), Olaokecity Ventures and ICStudios. 

CATE's Sola Alamutu will facilitate the children creative workshops, along with Polly Alakija at the GCLF 2012.