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Publishing And The New Gong Project: Dulue Mbachu, author of the soul-
stirring novel War Games, came up with the initiative of The New Gong
Collective. He had company in Adewale Maja-Pearce, former editor of
Heinemann's African Writers Series (AWS), who published his controversial
book of essays featuring Ken Saro-Wiwa under the imprint. Then followed
Isidore my brother's hefty novel Vision Impossible and of course my debut
collection of poems God of Poetry. The New Gong is a collective in which
writers pull their resources together here without the undue pandering to Euro-
American publishers. The publishing house will soon be releasing an
anthology of poems and a short story collection by Nigerian writers. It is an
idea whose time has come, and I can only advise other workers with words
here in Nigeria to embrace the movement.
Politics And Literature Today: Back then when we were at Ife, a leftist
revolutionary ethos was all the rage. So many of the mouthers have fallen by
the wayside. Some of us are still there, daring poverty or failure or even
death. The fact that a comrade such as the inimitable Chima Ubani paid the
supreme price, killed by the Nigerian state, is enough reason for one to stick
at it. It is incumbent on me to write about Baba the Barbarian, Emperor of
Democracy and voting with stones for the man at the Minna hilltop! It is not
just a mark of courage, but one must be up to it to speak truth to power. The
young eriters of today are doing their best even against impossible odds. The
poets of today have nothing to be ashamed of when compared with any
generation of Nigerian writers. History will definitely bear this out.
University Education, Funding And Research:
The leaders of this country have all failed, none more so than General
Olusegun Obasanjo who let so much money pass through his hands in his
second incarnation in power without achieving anything. As a military Head of
State he was infamous with colonel Ahmadu Ali for initiating the rot in the
university system. Now he has just left power yet again with ASUU still on
strike. We have made no progress. Back then we could buy brand new books.
Now even tokunbo books are hard to come by. New journals for research are
just not there. At Ife, I remember taking a book from my teacher Dr Yemi
Ogunbiyi's library, a very big novel titled The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists by Robert Tressel. The book shaped my life in much the same
way that Mahatma Gandhi embraced poverty. I have been going all over the
place in the past how many years looking for the book, even a second hand
copy, and I can't get it in present-day Nigeria. The UNESCO charge that 25
percent of the budget should go to education in third world countries is
grossly abused here in Nigeria.
Books Written And Recognition: I find it funny when some secondary
students point out to me that a soccer match I reported in my journalism
career is in their reader. I wasn't paid a dime for the effort. Back in 1989 I was
appointed a Distinguished Visitor at The Graduate School of Journalism,
University of Western Ontario, Canada. The campus is in a little town known
as London, and it has its own River Thames! The recognition afforded me the
opportunity to lecture in Canadian and American universities as well as
sharing space and mind with North American journalists. An incident that
occurred then was that I was scheduled to do a lecture at the University of
Pittsburgh, USA, on the invitation of my friend, the South African poet Dennis
Brutus. The American Consulate in Toronto said it would not grant me an
American visa given that I had only a single-entry visa into Canada. I told The
consulate man that he must grant the visa. My Canadian hosts asked me to
stay put in the hotel in Toronto while they faxed protest letters all over the
place, and Dennis Brutus joined the war. The Americans had to beg me to
come take the visa! Incidentally when I flew into America from Canada, I
landed at the local airport which entailed that I didn't need the visa in the first
place. Even Dennis Brutus and his faculty who were waiting for me at the
international wing of the airport completely missed me! When I was coming
back into Canada, given that I had single-entry visa, a Canadian official pulled
me aside. When he found out I was a writer we started discussing Canadian
writers such as Margaret Atwood, and he promptly, there and then, endorsed
a multiple-entry visa on my Nigerian passport!
Novels And Plays And Poetry: I can meander through all the genres. The
first play I wrote, Doctor of Football, is the fulcrum of a nation-building project I
want to champion now, starting from my home state of Anambra. I wrote the
play as a teenager. It can feed me for life if I handle it well. You just wait. In
1990 I won a BBC short story prize with my entry entitled The Dog. Other
short stories such as The Day of the Dancing Devil is quite popular with the
BBC London since 1989 and has even be read on the China service. My
novel Satan's Story, I have just been informed, is included in an American
university's book of criticism, yet I don't today have a copy of the novel! The
other novel, The Missing Link, enabled me get an agent, Radala & Associates
in London, whom I promised to give the real novel I'm working on. I guess they
must be tired of me by now. I also hope to produce my drama, A Play of
Ghosts. The poetry collection God of Poetry is the latest offering.
This Generation And Theoretical Differences With The Forebears:
Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka are known worldwide as the major voices of
African literature. The generation following Achebe and Soyinka fought
ideological wars with their predecessors. In a manner not unlike Hegellian
dialectics, it would appear that we are in the third stage where there exits the
need to resolve the argument of thesis and anithesis via synthesis. So there
is so much work to be done by this generation to transcend what already
exists. Unfortunately the critical faculty is lacking to do justice to the creative
flowering.
Making Ends Meet: Somehow one must in one way be involved in journalism
to earn some kind of money to feed the family. This has not helped my
creative writing, to say the truth. But then, as a ragged trousered
philanthropist, I have contributed my own little quota to journalism. One day, I
was at Thisday newspaper and this security man was giving me a hard time. I
had to inform him that, but for the pioneer work I did in founding the
newspaper, maybe he wiould have had no job except as an armed robber!
Yes, Nduka Obaigbena took me to Guaranty Trust Bank in Victoria Island
back then, and gave me the money with which I did the dummy of Thisday
newspaper. In fact, after giving me the money I had insisted that he must give
me beer money too, as beer money and business money ought not to mix. He
brought the beer money and I boozed all my friends in Surulere, as the Obi of
Ikate, before deigning to do the dummy of the newspaper!
* Culled from THE GUARDIAN, Saturday, June 9, 2007 Pg. 37
stirring novel War Games, came up with the initiative of The New Gong
Collective. He had company in Adewale Maja-Pearce, former editor of
Heinemann's African Writers Series (AWS), who published his controversial
book of essays featuring Ken Saro-Wiwa under the imprint. Then followed
Isidore my brother's hefty novel Vision Impossible and of course my debut
collection of poems God of Poetry. The New Gong is a collective in which
writers pull their resources together here without the undue pandering to Euro-
American publishers. The publishing house will soon be releasing an
anthology of poems and a short story collection by Nigerian writers. It is an
idea whose time has come, and I can only advise other workers with words
here in Nigeria to embrace the movement.
Politics And Literature Today: Back then when we were at Ife, a leftist
revolutionary ethos was all the rage. So many of the mouthers have fallen by
the wayside. Some of us are still there, daring poverty or failure or even
death. The fact that a comrade such as the inimitable Chima Ubani paid the
supreme price, killed by the Nigerian state, is enough reason for one to stick
at it. It is incumbent on me to write about Baba the Barbarian, Emperor of
Democracy and voting with stones for the man at the Minna hilltop! It is not
just a mark of courage, but one must be up to it to speak truth to power. The
young eriters of today are doing their best even against impossible odds. The
poets of today have nothing to be ashamed of when compared with any
generation of Nigerian writers. History will definitely bear this out.
University Education, Funding And Research:
The leaders of this country have all failed, none more so than General
Olusegun Obasanjo who let so much money pass through his hands in his
second incarnation in power without achieving anything. As a military Head of
State he was infamous with colonel Ahmadu Ali for initiating the rot in the
university system. Now he has just left power yet again with ASUU still on
strike. We have made no progress. Back then we could buy brand new books.
Now even tokunbo books are hard to come by. New journals for research are
just not there. At Ife, I remember taking a book from my teacher Dr Yemi
Ogunbiyi's library, a very big novel titled The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists by Robert Tressel. The book shaped my life in much the same
way that Mahatma Gandhi embraced poverty. I have been going all over the
place in the past how many years looking for the book, even a second hand
copy, and I can't get it in present-day Nigeria. The UNESCO charge that 25
percent of the budget should go to education in third world countries is
grossly abused here in Nigeria.
Books Written And Recognition: I find it funny when some secondary
students point out to me that a soccer match I reported in my journalism
career is in their reader. I wasn't paid a dime for the effort. Back in 1989 I was
appointed a Distinguished Visitor at The Graduate School of Journalism,
University of Western Ontario, Canada. The campus is in a little town known
as London, and it has its own River Thames! The recognition afforded me the
opportunity to lecture in Canadian and American universities as well as
sharing space and mind with North American journalists. An incident that
occurred then was that I was scheduled to do a lecture at the University of
Pittsburgh, USA, on the invitation of my friend, the South African poet Dennis
Brutus. The American Consulate in Toronto said it would not grant me an
American visa given that I had only a single-entry visa into Canada. I told The
consulate man that he must grant the visa. My Canadian hosts asked me to
stay put in the hotel in Toronto while they faxed protest letters all over the
place, and Dennis Brutus joined the war. The Americans had to beg me to
come take the visa! Incidentally when I flew into America from Canada, I
landed at the local airport which entailed that I didn't need the visa in the first
place. Even Dennis Brutus and his faculty who were waiting for me at the
international wing of the airport completely missed me! When I was coming
back into Canada, given that I had single-entry visa, a Canadian official pulled
me aside. When he found out I was a writer we started discussing Canadian
writers such as Margaret Atwood, and he promptly, there and then, endorsed
a multiple-entry visa on my Nigerian passport!
Novels And Plays And Poetry: I can meander through all the genres. The
first play I wrote, Doctor of Football, is the fulcrum of a nation-building project I
want to champion now, starting from my home state of Anambra. I wrote the
play as a teenager. It can feed me for life if I handle it well. You just wait. In
1990 I won a BBC short story prize with my entry entitled The Dog. Other
short stories such as The Day of the Dancing Devil is quite popular with the
BBC London since 1989 and has even be read on the China service. My
novel Satan's Story, I have just been informed, is included in an American
university's book of criticism, yet I don't today have a copy of the novel! The
other novel, The Missing Link, enabled me get an agent, Radala & Associates
in London, whom I promised to give the real novel I'm working on. I guess they
must be tired of me by now. I also hope to produce my drama, A Play of
Ghosts. The poetry collection God of Poetry is the latest offering.
This Generation And Theoretical Differences With The Forebears:
Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka are known worldwide as the major voices of
African literature. The generation following Achebe and Soyinka fought
ideological wars with their predecessors. In a manner not unlike Hegellian
dialectics, it would appear that we are in the third stage where there exits the
need to resolve the argument of thesis and anithesis via synthesis. So there
is so much work to be done by this generation to transcend what already
exists. Unfortunately the critical faculty is lacking to do justice to the creative
flowering.
Making Ends Meet: Somehow one must in one way be involved in journalism
to earn some kind of money to feed the family. This has not helped my
creative writing, to say the truth. But then, as a ragged trousered
philanthropist, I have contributed my own little quota to journalism. One day, I
was at Thisday newspaper and this security man was giving me a hard time. I
had to inform him that, but for the pioneer work I did in founding the
newspaper, maybe he wiould have had no job except as an armed robber!
Yes, Nduka Obaigbena took me to Guaranty Trust Bank in Victoria Island
back then, and gave me the money with which I did the dummy of Thisday
newspaper. In fact, after giving me the money I had insisted that he must give
me beer money too, as beer money and business money ought not to mix. He
brought the beer money and I boozed all my friends in Surulere, as the Obi of
Ikate, before deigning to do the dummy of the newspaper!
* Culled from THE GUARDIAN, Saturday, June 9, 2007 Pg. 37