From Africa Correspondent  

Abuja

Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Abuja Literary Society (ALS), 2 Masks & a Griot (2MG) in collaboration several international agencies and institutes, marked the tenth anniversary of the passing of the internationally acclaimed author, Chinua Achebe.

The groups marked the event with an international hybrid roundtable discussion themed: Revisiting Chinua Achebe’s Position on Colonial Language and Creative Writing in Africa, held on May 20, at the Mamman Jiya Vatsa (ANA) Writers Village in Mpape, Abuja. Literature enthusiasts’ home and abroad were encouraged to join the event physically at the writers’ village or virtually on zoom.

The roundtable featured the panelists Terri Ochiagha of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Manfred Metzner of Vetlag Das Winderhorn Publishing House; Kenyan writer, Barack Wanderah Oduor, Egyptian writer and Poet, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid and Nigerian author, Romeo Oriogun based in the UK.

Razinat Mohammed (Moderator) is a professor of African Literary Criticism, Gender Studies and Creative Writing at University of Abuja, where she is Head of the Department of English Studies. She holds a PhD in Feminist Literary Criticism and is also an award winning author of A Love like a Woman’s and other Stories (2005). She is the author of two novels, Habiba (2013), a finalist at the 2014 Association of Nigerian Authors’ prize for prose and The Travails of a First Wife (2015). Her articles and book chapters have been published in foremost international Journals on African Literature, the African Literature Today series in Suffolk, UK and other highly esteemed publishing houses like Routledge, UK. Her creative works have appeared in Camouflage: The Best of Contemporary Writings from Nigeria, The Gong Books, Fireflies: An Anthology of New Nigerian Poetry, Pyramids: An Anthology of Poems from Northern Nigeria, For Women Collective: A Tribute to Nina Simone (USA). She is the author of Intra-gender Relations between Women: A Study of Nawal El-Saadawi and Buchi Emecheta’s Novels, published by Lambert Academic Publication, Germany. She is the author of Female Representation in Nigerian Literature www.africanwriter.com among others. She co-edited The Markas: An Anthology of the Feelings on the Boko Haram (2019). She is a two- time Judge for the prestigious ($100,000) Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Prize for literature (2015 and 2017). She was a Resident Writer in El-Gouna, Egypt May /July, 2011. Since 2013, she has been the Chief Adjudicator for the annual Senior Secondary Schools National Essay Competition tagged, Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange (WSICE) in honour of Prof. Wole Soyinka.

The second moderator was Sule Emmanuel Egya who is a professor of African literature and cultural studies at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Nigeria. His research interests include the intersection of literature and politics in Africa, feminism, cultural studies, and ecocriticism. Fellowships and awards he has previously benefited from include PER SESH Writing Fellowship; the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship; the African Humanities Fellowship; and the Humboldt Talent Travel Award. He has written over one hundred scholarly articles and literary essays. He is the author of The Writings of Zaynab Alkali (2005); In Their Voices and Visions: Conversations with New Nigerian Writers (2007); Poetics of Rage: A Reading of Remi Raji’s Poetry (2011); Nation, Power, and Dissidence in Third Generation Nigerian Poetry (2014); and Niyi Osundare: a Literary Biography (2017). He is also a creative writer. His first novel Sterile Sky (2012) won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize for the Africa Region. Makwala (2018) is his second novel. His poetry volumes include What the Sea Told Me (2009, winner of ANA Gabriel Okara Prize), Naked Sun (2006), and Knifing Tongues (2005).

Panelist Asraf Aboul-Yazid is novelist, poet, translator and journalist from Egypt. Author of more than 40 books of poetry, novels, biographies, criticism, children’s literature and translations. His travels to 33 countries have been published in books and dozens of literary periodicals.  He works as the editor-in-chief of the Silk Road Literature Series in Egypt and as the editor-in-chief of the Korean Arabic-language portal the AsiaN. He is the winner of Manhae Grand Prize in Literature, The Republic of Korea, 2014, Arab Journalism Award in Culture, UAE, 2015, The Gold Medal in LIFFT Eurasian Literary Festival, Istanbul, 2021 and Sawiris Cultural Award. Children Literature, 2023.

Panelist Dike Chukwumerije is a Nigerian spoken word and performance poetry artist and author. He has eight published books including the novel Urichindere, which won the 2013 Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Prize for Prose Fiction. Chukwumerije was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2016. An international speaker, he is Nigeria’s most prolific performance poet with successful performance poetry videos, a live poetry show (NSW – Night of the Spoken Word) and theatre productions well received all over Nigeria.

Panelist Manfred Metzner, grew up in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance 1967 – 1973 Studied law at the University of Heidelberg 1973 Acting studies at the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Bridgeport/ USA 1974 Assistant at the law faculty of the University of Montpellier/ France. Engaged in the Occitan independence movement (Larzac, Lutte occitane, winegrowers, etc.). 1977 Admitted to the bar 1978 Co-founder of the publishing house Das Wunderhorn, since then publisher and managing partner 1984 -1986 Weekly newspaper “Communale” –editor 1984 -1994 City  councilor/ Beziksbeirat; member of the supervisory board of HVV and HSB in Heidelberg. Since 1989 publisher of the photographic work of the Bauhaus artist Ré Soupault and curator of numerous photo exhibitions on this subject. Editor of the literary work of the French surrealist Philippe Soupault Initiator of the Heidelberg Literature Days in 1993 and festival director until 2016. Since 1995 Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Karlstorbahnhof Cultural Center (Heidelberg). 2000 Co-founder of the Kurt Wolff Foundation for the promotion of a diverse publishing and literary scene (Leipzig) and its first chairman until 2010. 2008 Appointed Officier dans l’orde national du mérite by the President of France. 2007 – 2015 Lecturer for cultural mediation and publishing at the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg. 2009 Founded the literary deer AfrikAWunderhorn. In his series AfrkiAWunderhorn more than 40 authors from Africa have been published in first German translation so far, including Chinelo Okparanta, Helon Habila, Elnathan John, Ben Okri and E.C. Osondu from Nigeria” 2010 – 2017 Spokesperson of the cultural region/metropolitan region. Rhine-Neckar 2012 – 2014 member of the application committee of the city of Heidelberg to become UNESCO City of Literature 2015 – 2021 Member of the jury “German Bookstore Prize 2020 -2023 Member of the “Bavarian Publishing Prize” jury Numerous literary publications and publications on the situation of independent publishers, changes in publishing and book trade structures, Franco-German cultural exchange and cultural policy issues.

Panelist Romeo Oriogun is the author of Sacrament of Bodies, Nomad, and The Gathering of Bastards. He is the winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, the Poertry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Nation, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Harvard Review, American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. An Alumni of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he currently lives in Iowa City where he works at the International Writers Program as the Youth Programs Coordinator.

Panelist Dr. Terri Ochiagha is a literary critic and cultural historian, and a world-leading expert on the work of the ‘father of modern African Literature’, Chinua Achebe. She holds a B.A., M.A., and PhD in English from Complutense University, Madrid. She is currently a Lecturer in Global Anglophone Literatures at the University of Edinburgh, where she teaches Literary Theory, English Literature across the 16th-21st centuries, and her own specialist course, ‘Education and Empire’. Her first book, Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite (2015) won the African Studies Association of the UK’s inaugural Fage&Oliver Prize for the most outstanding book on Africa published in 2014-2015. She is also the author of A Short History of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (2018). Affective States and Archival Excess: Nigeria Magazine and the Politics of Self-Monumentality is her third book, and Chinua Achebe: A Life at the Crossroads will be her fourth book.

Panelist Barack Wandera Oduor is a Kenyan Writer of fiction and Educational materials. Additionally, Wandera is involved in the editorial process of a poetry project done jointly between Kakamega Book Club and Daystar University. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Education from Maseno University and is a Masters of Arts in Literature student at Maseno University. He is a teacher of English at St. Andrews Matulo Secondary School in Webuye, Kenya as well as the Managing Director of InterCEN Publishers based in Kakamega, Kenya. He is the Acting Secretary- General of Creative Writers association of Kenya. Among the works he has published include the following creative works and Educational Materials.

Other participants have Denja Abdullahi who is an award winning poet, literary essayist and culture technocrat. He was the National General Secretary of the Association of Nigerian authors from 2005-2009. Denja currently serves in the National Council for Arts and Culture, Abuja Nigeria, as a Deputy Director of Performing Arts. His poems and other literary pieces have appeared in anthologies such as A Volcano of Voices (1999), Uncle Bola’s Promise (2003), Confluence Blues (2004) Abuja Acolytes (2000) Five Hundred Nigerian Poets (2005) Camouflage (2006)Crossroads(2008) Pyramids 2008),Fireflies(2009), Agogo 2009) and in several other newspapers, reviews, journals and magazines. His first published poetic volume Mairogo: a Buffoon’s Poetic Journey around Northern Nigeria (2001) received honourable mention for the prestigious ANA/CADBURY 2001 Poetry Prize. Denja Abdullahi  published two poetry volumes in 2008, The Talking Drum (February, 2008) and Abuja Nunyi (This is  Abuja) (May,2008).His other published works are  A Thousand Years of Thirst( 2011), Hajj Poems(2014) and Death and the King’s Grey Hairand other Plays(2014).He also co-edited the book Themes Fall Apart But The Centre Holds, published in 2009 in commemoration of the 50 years Anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which was celebrated worldwide in 2008.

Participant Jahman Anikulapo wears many relevant hats in the Nigerian arts and culture sector, among them, festival director, cultural archivist, literary critic and curator. He is currently the program chairman at the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), where he has co-directed the annual Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) since 1999. Jahman is also Executive Program Director, Culture Advocates Caucus, CAC. He has served as Art and Culture journalist since 1987; reporting events and managing cultural programs around the world. A former stage actor, manager and director on national and international productions, he has helped to shape national and international policies on culture. In addition, he has served on several committees including the Commonwealth Foundation, and Tony Blair Commission for Africa’s sub-committee for Culture, among others. He also serves as the executive director, iREP Film Festival, and sits on the board of Arts and Business Foundation (ABF). He consults on publications (magazines and books) regularly and notably, was Editor of The Guardian on Sunday for a decade from 2003.

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From Correspondent

Khairpur, Sindh

The 202nd Annual Urs celebrations of the great Sufi Saint Sachal Sarmast concluded with literary conference and mystic music concert at Daraza Sharif in Khairpur district on Friday April 7, 2023.

Speaking at the literary conference, the speakers called for following the path. “Sachal’s poetry contains the message for the youth of the present era, and it’s the path they should adopt for a better future, Knowledge, civilization and education,” they urged.

Writers said that the shrine of the Hazrat Sachal Sarmast urges the soul against dogmatism.

Dr. Mahar Khadim demanded the funds for Sachal Chair established Shah Abdul Latif University and implementing the recommendations through a newly formed committee.

Madhad Ali Sindhi, who presided over the literary conference, said that Sachal Sarmast was a rebel poet of his time who raised his voice against religious sectarianism in his poetry. “At that time, due to the wrong policy of the Mughal Empire in the entire subcontinent, Sufi poets like Bully Shah and Sachal Sarmast protested it through poetry.”

The special guest of the literary conference Dr. Adal Soomro said that Sachal Sarmast was a follower of Mansoori thought.

He interpreted the philosophy of the right and gave courage to common people against fanaticism.

Professor Dr. Altaf Aseem said that Sachal was a great name who always spoke the truth, that’s why he was called Sachal.

Riyazt Buriro, Dr. Mushtaq Phul, Dr. Sher Mehrani, Hubdar Jagirani, Hizbullah Soomro, Amar Iqbal, Darya Khan and others presented their articles. Mukhtar Malik, Secretary of Sachal Yadgar Committee also spoke.

The Writers said that the time has come to talk about the topic with scientific thinking instead of presenting copy-paste writing so that today’s youth can find path and face the problems of the 21st century.

The scholars, writers, researchers emphasized on the composition of authentic magazines of Sachal Sarmast and research on Persian language.

They urged the Sindh government to strengthen the institutions financially and administratively.

At the outset, the literary conference condemned the killing of Professor Dr. Ajmal Sawand and a minute’s silence was observed.

During the conference certain publications including “Sarmast 42”,  published by the Sachal Yadgar Committee, “Sachal Souvenir 32”  published by the Department of Culture, “Diwan Ashkar” of Persian Ghazal of Sachal Sain, and “Schal Sodo” published by the Information Department of Sindh, were launched.

Sufi singers Rajab Faqir, Salamat Sohrab, Ustad Ghafoor Soomro, Sharif Abbasi and others enthralled the audience by singing the poetry of Sachal.

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But today’s readers are suffering a lot. Their lives have trampled over them with so critical problems. They are threatened by poverty, crushed by unemployment, wars, and disease overcomes them.

A keynote speech at the 60th African literature and writers’ anniversary conference

By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

In our time, we live in more than one circle; circles that narrow and widen, touch, overlap and intersect, and sometimes even resist each other, and contradict with other circles. They are circles described as private and public, personal and family, community and country, until we arrive at the human beings ‘circle as part of the great cosmic circle.

Between these circles, waves operate their influence. As writers we are aware of how reading, for example, has its effect on us. When we chose its mirror; writing, we knew the power of this influence, it is true that we write for ourselves, but we also write for an implicit reader, and a hidden receiver, we seek to influence him with our letters, as we were affected by the letters of others.

But today’s readers are suffering a lot. Their lives have trampled over them with so critical problems. They are threatened by poverty, crushed by unemployment, wars, and disease overcomes them. The statistics tell us a lot about the aggravation of humanity’s problems in the twenty-first century, as if the more humanity progresses, the more it crushes the human beings on the way to progress.

According to unemployment statistics in Africa in twenty countries, their unemployment rates are ranging between 29% and 10% ;  which are large proportions according to the population numbers. South Africa recorded the highest unemployment rate in Africa in 2020, where almost 29 percent of the country’s workforce was unemployed. Lesotho and Eswatini followed, with unemployment levels reaching nearly 25 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Today, the citizens are no longer victims of authoritarian regimes alone; the monsters of the pandemics, high prices and corruption have drawn in on them, to the extent that well-being is no longer on their list of ambitions, but rather is satisfied with meeting their basic needs. Safety has become a basic requirement, which they seek, safety at home, street, school and workplace, safety for them and their families, safety for them and their communities.

Science has helped us, or technology has caught us, in the trap of estrangement with the other as it is a security factor for ourselves from the oppression of the others and their negative impact. We have established separate islands that are linked to others only by digital technology. The means of communication have become one of the tools of non-communication; we are now replacing written, audio and video messages for live meetings, and clichés on individual congratulatory occasions, and we are keen to fence our islands to protect them from penetration, as if we are electronic devices afraid of virus piracy. We have deluded ourselves that we are happy, each on his island, even within members of the same family.

We thought it was safe! However, the tentacles of extremism brutalized that safety, after it spread to threaten every possible safe space: targeting girl students in their schools, killing believers in their places of worship, threatening workers in their factories, and blowing up the masses in markets. Extremist terrorist operations did not exclude a place where it wreaked havoc.

The question we – the writers – must answer is: What will we do?

In fact, in the midst of this fierce ocean with its deadly waves that threaten our safe islands, we must think seriously about creating safety waves that protect our present and secure our future.

The writer and poet’s role does not end by handing over texts to the publisher, or giving words to the publishing platform. Our role does not stop when our books and collections are published, but that is the beginning; the real role is for these texts to interact with the circle of readers.

Today, I will discuss with you few ideas, in which the writer becomes a beacon in his depressed society, and a inspiration in his bleak surroundings. That is, to turn into a candle that lights up the footsteps of comrades and family in the dark, and a lamp that lights the way for others in frustrated societies.

We need someone who inspires hope and motivates souls to work. It may be worthy of a writer who has achieved success, to give gratitude to the root places of this success. Did our friends think of visiting their first school, in which the journey of education and reading began, and in which the roots of interest in literature were planted?

The truth is that my own experience was amazing, when I took a collection of my publications for young students and adult teachers. I visited my primary school in my hometown, and entered the library whose content I owe the beginnings of reading and a love of knowledge. A discussion took place with young boys and girls about reading and writing. I believe in the positivity of this wave issued by that gathering.

Let us imagine that writers on a visit to their first schools with messages that grow in these meetings to produce waves of safety, and urge the young generation to focus on reading, which for all of us represents a positive, influential, and effective act. Reading saved my childhood, and I think many of you would agree with me.

Today, the battalions of male and female writers have had access to many platforms that make their voices fully heard and seen. One of the problems facing our African continent is illegal immigration, which claims thousands of lives every year. Why not be our campaign dedicated to raising awareness of the dangers of this illegal trend?

Figures of illegal immigration from Africa are available from multiple sources and are estimated at hundreds of thousands each year. The fates of these people are divided between drowning at sea or being tortured or deported on and from land. These adventurers who lost their lives were sent by despair to the boats of death. Who puts out the fire of despair?

People in despair did not find someone to hear their voice, nor did they find a merciful voice calling them, from the soil of their homeland, I do not say that we have to bleed the facts in order to bear what they are in, but we have to think about drawing alternative ways for them.

It is our duty to offer solutions and suggest means for officials in both public and private sectors to allocate a percentage of the profits to the care of these destitute. Simple temporary pensions and soft loans are two means that may succeed in dissuading hundreds of thousands from undertaking an adventure in which they pay the smuggler huge sums for the sake of a great delusion.

Africans in Europe

After a century of all African migrations to Europe, legal and illegal, the number of Africans registered in the countries of the old continent does not exceed but a little ten million, with   440,000 traveled in five- years between 2000 and 2005.

There are about 3,115,500 million Africans in France (2019 census), 1.387 million in UK (2016 census), 1,140,012 million in Italy (2018 census), 1,120,639 million in Spain (2019 census), 1 million in Germany (2020 census), 714,732 in the Netherlands (2020 census), 700 thousand in Portugal, 550,000 thousand in Belgium (2018 census), 93,800 thousand in Switzerland (2015 census), at least 50,000 thousand in Turkey, and over 54,450 thousand Lowest in Finland (2019 census). Those who have succeeded in migrating to the European paradise are a very small percentage compared to the population of our continent, which has a population of more than 1.216 billion people (2016 census).

We are responsible to more than a billion people to play the role of searching for an alternative paradise in Africa for its inhabitants and people. Hence, development in African countries is a priority for the establishment of this paradise.

Our duty is to urge officials to develop and present our innovative ideas to benefit from natural resources in history and tourism. Our duty is to spread waves of hope to achieve security for these sons and daughters, and to send waves of optimism for parents. Every, and each writer, all poets and poetesses must turn into a field to send the waves that attract hope.

I might borrow Wole Soyinka’s phrase: “You cannot live a normal existence if you haven’t taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.”

Let us think together; we see advertisements on the back of bills in every bank, store or gas station. So why don’t we put, next to ads, phrases like this that millions will see every day.

How many people reading Soyinka’s phrase will rethink their connection to roots: “There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?”

This is in Nigeria, and similar examples can be taken of great writers and poets in all of Africa. Not just on food bills, but on streetlights poles, on the desk backs of bus stops, and inside billboards at subway and train stations,

How I would love to read in Senegal one day this phrase in more than one space, written by its great poet Léopold Sédar Senghor (Below):

“No one has the right to erase my culture because a community without a culture is a people without human beings”.

Just as I want the phrase of Naguib Mahfouz (above) in Egypt to be on every door:

“The conscious mind is able to respect an idea, even if person does not believe in it.”

Rather, I may be more optimistic, when I dream that sports commentators, with their papers filled with repetitive numbers, carry short poems for the peoples of Africa to read. One match is watched by millions. The dream of African poets will be fulfilled; that their poems will be heard by millions at one time, on television.

Perhaps a writer, poet or creator in the responsibility position of radio and television unions, can allocate the match commentator for one minute – in which play stops during the ninety minutes- and often this happens, to read a short text, there will be more than 200 texts, by 200  poets or writers, in a sports season. What a breakthrough, it would be a poetic and prose revolution without a doubt.

In our Islamic law and heritage, we believe in zakat; and work with it. It is the tax due on every income. I do not exclude culture, literature and the arts from this income. So, I invite every writer, every poet and every publisher to allocate a zakat on his books; a percentage of published works to be donated to public libraries, to school libraries, and to libraries of social and sports clubs. Let books speak in your name in every space. It is your letters that transcend you.

I would also like to salute the experiences of libraries based on personal initiatives, to urge children to read, in places far from the main cities; those caravans in which one or more persons work to transport a group of books on a car that provides a free reading service. I wish the writers would accompany that caravan to read their books for children. Let us salute the reading convoys, for a knowledge silk road that lays the foundation for the ambition of new generations.

We are moved by words, in nations that believe in the power of letters, and our oral and written cultures are based on words. These words are the core of the waves of safety, which will serve as a blocking wall against the tidal waves attacking our safe islands.

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Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is President, Asia Journalist Association, Editor in Chief, The Silk Road Literature Series. He worked in Cultural Journalism for 30 years and is author of 40 books. He won Manhae Grand Prize in Literature, Korea (2014), Arab Journalism Award in Culture, UAE (2015), and Gold Medal in LIFFT Eurasian Literary Festival, Istanbul, 2021. This poem Jack Hirschman was published in anthology.

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