Favourite Five: Victor Alao

Victor Alao's works are published in Sentinel Nigeria, The Colored Lens, and Jungle Jim. He never shuts up about stories. From time to time, he writes on The Heavenly Press blog as the Chief Spokesperson for the Heavenly Host. There are no exceptions to the things he would read. He loves Supernatural and has given up on Chelsea F.C. 

He had this to say about his favourite five books "My favourite list is too volatile and changes too often (usually with sentiment). So let’s call this a list of books I really would love to give people to read." 

Contract with God Trilogy by Will Eisner

This is the first graphic novel I read more than five times. It’s a collection of stories about the everyday lives of the residents of Dropsie Avenue and you will be really surprised at how extraordinary the lives of these people are. On the surface, they are everyday people and let’s be honest, what does that mean, to be an everyday person? In the title story, a rabbi feels cheated by his contract with God and reneges on his duties and as a result becomes the butterfly that starts the storm affecting every other person in the story. Great collection. 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

This book kept me smiling when I was done. The flap jacket will tell you it’s about time travel but it’s much more. King tells the tale of a man, Jack Epping, who goes to the past to prevent JFK’s death which is set for 11/22/63. Time travel is the least of things going on in this novel and since Jack has to wait in the past for five years before the date of the impending disaster, you can be sure this man will find adventures, including falling in love, along the way. Does he succeed in preventing JFK’s death or not? Read to find out. It’s one of my favourite King titles.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

This is the first book in The Gentlemen Bastards series. After the first sixty pages, it begins to feel like you are in a movie with a lively cast of thieves with a Robin Hood approach to stealing. And it reads really fast. Someone described it as Mission Impossible meets another movie I can’t remember. The statement is true, it has that espionage feel from Mission Impossible. Maybe you can call it Mission Impossible meets Robin Hood since its time period is somewhere in the Medieval Era. In any case, it’s really up there for me. 

Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

This book showed me another side of the “imagined” world I will always be grateful for. I met characters in its country of Aburiria that I will never forget. And how can I forget Machokali who enlarges his ears so he can show devotion to his master by being his master’s ears, or Markus who decides his eyes were better bigger to show dedication to the Ruler? It’s a country I’ve visited again and again. 

Perfume, the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a perfume maker in 18th Century France whose nose is like his eyes and he has the misfortune of not having a personal odour, which makes him feel invisible. And because of this curse, he kills in order to create the perfect scent. This is a different type of serial killer and Suskind delivers a book told through the nose of this killer. It’s all about smells and this killer knows them all.

Noo Saro-Wiwa in Conversation with Miss Ojikutu

Miss Ojikutu in conversation with Noo Saro Wiwa. Interesting questions and responses. More here. 

What’s the most memorable casual reader feedback you’ve received on your writing?

This email: “All I was left with when the book came to its close was the thought ’I can’t wait to read her next’, you know, the same feeling one has after a bloody excellent meal.”

Tell us your writing process – from conception to first draft.

I take an interest in a country. I then travel around the country and talk to people, constantly scribbling notes or recording things on my Dictaphone. Every evening I type up my notes and transcribe my recordings, no matter how tired I am. Then I email them to myself. I also write a diary as it’s a good way of chronicling my feelings (emotions can be surprisingly easy to forget over time). Once I fly back home, I transform my observations into prose. My writing is most prolific after midnight.

Why travel writing?

It combines my two loves: travel and literature. I love reading books that transport me to another place and teach me things about it, so I want to do the same for others.

What were the high and low points of your tour of Nigeria?

The high points were the dog show at Ibadan, the Durbah in Kano, and eating plantain and goat non-stop. The low points were seeing young kids having to work for a living, as well as visiting Port Harcourt Zoo (the conditions were so bad I was too embarrassed to write about it).

Foreign literary prizes: have they done more good or harm to African writing?

They’re a force for good. They ensure that a certain level of quality is maintained, otherwise  standards might fall (you only have to compare our newspapers of today with papers 40 years ago to see how easily writing standards can drop). Foreign prizes also lend prestige and financial support to a profession that’s not lucrative. This is important in places like Nigeria where financial hardship causes many youngsters to overlook literature as a vocation.

Do you think Africa is being fairly depicted by contemporary African writers? And is this portrayal something that should necessarily preoccupy writers?

I think African writers portray Africa fairly and in a rich variety. If people don’t like the realism they should criticise the politicians and criminals who create that reality. There’s no point shooting the messenger. Writers should worry about accuracy rather than positivity. Good literature must come from an honest place; it’s not a form of propaganda. Besides, most foreign perceptions of our continent aren’t actually based on novels – they’re based on television news.

Merry Christmas!

How is Christmas at your end? We hope that the season brings you reasons to smile, laugh and dance, even as you prepare for the year ahead. Here is a poem The Shivering Beggar by Robert Graves. Enjoy!

Near Clapham village, where fields began,
Saint Edward met a beggar man.
It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled,
The old man trembled for the fierce cold.
 
Saint Edward cried, "It is monstrous sin
A beggar to lie in rags so thin!
An old gray-beard and the frost so keen:
I shall give him my fur-lined gaberdine."
 
He stripped off his gaberdine of scarlet
And wrapped it round the aged varlet,
Who clutched at the folds with a muttered curse,
Quaking and chattering seven times worse.
 
Said Edward, "Sir, it would seem you freeze
Most bitter at your extremities.
Here are gloves and shoes and stockings also,
That warm upon your way you may go."
 
The man took stocking and shoe and glove,
Blaspheming Christ our Saviour’s love,
Yet seemed to find but little relief,
Shaking and shivering like a leaf.
 
Said the saint again, "I have no great riches,
Yet take this tunic, take these breeches,
My shirt and my vest, take everything,
And give due thanks to Jesus the King."
 
The saint stood naked upon the snow
Long miles from where he was lodged at Bowe,
Praying, "O God! my faith, it grows faint!
This would try the temper of any saint.
 
"Make clean my heart, Almighty, I pray,
And drive these sinful thoughts away.  
Make clean my heart if it be Thy will,
This damned old rascal’s shivering still!"
 
He stooped, he touched the beggar man’s shoulder;
He asked him did the frost nip colder?
"Frost!" said the beggar, "no, stupid lad!
’Tis the palsy makes me shiver so bad."

Commonwealth Essay Competition Opens for Entries

Are you a writer? Are you interested in the world around you? Do you  want your voice to be heard by others? If so, the Commonwealth Essay  Competition is definitely for you. We encourage you to be creative in your response to our topics. You can submit a poem, letter,  article, story, essay or even a short play. The choice is yours. 

Just get writing!

Every year, the Commonwealth Essay Competition inspires thousands of  young writers from all over the world. Run by the Royal Commonwealth  Society since 1883, it is the world's oldest and largest schools' international writing competition. Past winners include Mr Lee Hsien  Loong, the Prime Minister of Singapore and Elspeth Huxley. The competition is free to enter and in 2012 over 1,000 young  writers, from 245 schools, in 38 countries across the Commonwealth  received an award for their entry.

For 2013, we're delighted to announce that the Competition will be run in partnership with Cambridge University Press, whose support will enable us to engage even more young writers across the Commonwealth. The Competition celebrates and nurtures the creative talents of  young people across the Commonwealth, providing a platform for  students to compete with their peers in each of the 54 nations which  make up this unique association. Entrants are judged in two age groups, Junior (under 14 years) and Senior (14-18 years). 

The closing date is 1st May 2013 and results will be announced in  the autumn of next year. Moe information here.

Favourite Five: Eghosa Imasuen

Eghosa Imasuen, author of To Saint Patrick and Fine Boys is not new to the GCLF. We asked him to send us a short piece on his favourite five books; he had this to say. "Okay, I get this call from my friends at The Voice. Eghosa, we want you to write a little thing about the best five books you've read. Of all time? I ask. Yes, they say. Hard task, I say. They know. I can do it. So here goes. I have gone down the path of picking books which had a profound impact on me, on my world view, on my education. Some of these provoked me to ask more questions, and they entertained me immensely. Something I believe all fiction must do. I have arranged these entries more or less haphazardly; if there is any pattern, it is in the impact they had on my writing."

The Haj by Leon Uris

I read this book in university. It was my first Leon Uris book, and I was initially afraid of its volume, wondering how small me could finish what looked like a thousand-page epic. But Uris’ talents lie in moving the reader so quickly along his immensely enjoyable plots, while he also gives them a history lesson. The Haj follows the Palestinian tragedy. It goes back and forth, following a Palestinian Arab family, giving us a glimpse into their traditions. It wears the author’s opinions boldly, laying the blame for the current conflict at the feet of the British and the surrounding Arab states.

The Haj made me to read. It made me form an opinion based on the information as I could gather; it made me look with suspicion at the eschatologically-driven fatalism that drives much of the opinions of Nigerian evangelicals. It made me understand that villainy resides everywhere, side by side with heroism and love and beauty.

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Being a novelist, I felt odd putting a work of non-fiction on this list. But it is with a nod to the power of Preston’s prose that it has to be mentioned here. I read this book while working as a doctor in Warri. It conflated all the knowledge the world had at that point in time into a compact, eminently readable, non-fiction thriller.

The Hot Zone follows the outbreak at a US Army base of an exotic viral infection. This haemorrhagic fever outbreak allows the writer to take a journey into Equatorial Africa, the ancestral home of humanity, and of some of humanity’s oldest enemies. It explains the unintended consequences of modernity’s inexorable advance into the places of our origins. It is one of the best, most readable ripostes to the nonsense of alternative AIDS origin theory.

Fatherland by Robert Harris

I first heard of this novel after I watched the trailer of the movie adaptation. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I have since read the book. It is alternate history. It is genre fiction told so well, and by a first-time novelist, former journalist Robert Harris.

Its central premise is that the Nazi’s won World War Two. Its point of divergence is never pinpointed, but it would seem that Reinhard Heydrich’s survival of the 1942 assassination by British-trained Czech agents in Prague would have had major consequences had it happened. It is the 1960s in this alternate timeline. The USA and The Reich are negotiating détente. Secrets risk messing up everything. It is alternate history, and there is only so much I can mention in this little essay without spoiling a good thriller for you, dear reader. Suffice it to say that the world in which a Nazi superpower exists would be a strange place indeed. My first novel, To Saint Patrick, owes this work of art a debt of gratitude.

American Gods (The Tenth Anniversary Edition) by Neil Gaiman

Imagine reading a novel and listening to it at the same time. I'd heard of this book for a while. But it was after I heard that a special tenth anniversary edition had been published, with more than 12,000 words from the original manuscript restored, that I decided to look for it and read. I purchased the kindle edition and started reading. It is a massive book, and threatened to interfere with work. So I purchased the audio book too. And I listened to the book to and from work, and read from where I stopped in bed or at the dinner table. I am still in love with this book.

It is fantasy, science fiction, horror, travel fiction. It is everything and nothing. It asks, what if all the gods, and fairies, and monsters dreamed up by man in the lost places of the world, what if all these were alive, brought into being and are sustained by and thrive on our belief? What if we stopped believing? I cannot recommend Neil Gaiman enough. And this is his magnum opus.

Everything Good Will Come and Purple Hibiscus–  Sefi Atta and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I am going to cheat here. I am going to treat these books as one. I bought them on the same day in 2005, and read them back to back. They were both published by who would become my publisher, the Farafina imprint of Kachifo Ltd.

I had already started work on my first novel. I travelled to Lagos to shop for books, to see what the competition was writing when I bought these novels. They opened my eyes. Atta’s EGWC was a decade removed from my experience, but I found in its pages memories of uncles in my parents’ Boys Quarters, listening to Bob Marley, and of my aunties and older cousins, with perms, and shoulder-padded impossible square-cut blouses and high-waist stone wash mom-jeans. I saw the tragedy begin, the tragedy that would soon become mine.

This was where Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus began. The story had become ours. The breadwinners who became villains in their own homes. The rise and rise of inept political leadership, the lowering and lowering of standards till it’s now underground, so deep, it competes with our crude oil deposits for living space.

Both these books told me that my generation’s story had begun to be told. These novels confirmed to me that I had to keep on writing.

Chibundu Onuzo in Conversation with Miss Ojikutu

Miss Ojikutu interviewed Chibundu Onuzo on her blog. We bring you excerpts. You can read the complete interview here.

Which of your major characters would you like to be trapped on a desert island with?
Aunty Precious. She’d cook and I’d signal for ships.

Sell a million copies or win the Nobel Prize for literature?
Nobel because then it’d help me sell a million copies. Two birds with one stone.

Write one classic or have a sustained career of good books?
You can have both. Classics are usually not counted as such until you’re dead or at least well into the twilight of your career. Moby Dick is an excellent example. So you might have what you think is only a sustained career of good books but posterity may judge one or more as classics.

Worst thing about being a writer?
Some people think you sit at home all day doing nothing.

Remember your best and worst reviews? Let’s hear them.
I suffer from amnesia when it comes to these things.

One thing you wish you’d known starting out as an author?
Publishing takes forever.

Besides good writing what other skill do you think is essential to a successful career in writing?
Good writing is actually not essential to success, at least not in pecuniary terms.

#Excuse Me: Writing Competition

Write and win a Victor Ehikhamenor artwork. Really easy. More instructions on the poster! Good luck!!