1. Last week, over at the Storymoja blog where different bloggers are in conversation, I wrote about how we can fit our local languages into the texts that we write in English and whether we should be worried at all about the different Englishes we speak and how they will be received. Here is the post with some very insightful comments.
What are your thoughts?
2. While we are still trying to figure out our local languages and their audiences, Serubiri Moses asks whether Lugaflow can represent Uganda nationally or internationally in the same way Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart represents Nigeria nationally and internationally. Read more on this at the Bakwa Magazine website.
3. I was first introduced to Wole Soyinka in high school when we did The Trials of Brother Jero. I remember some of the characters like Amope so vividly as though I read the book just yesterday. The literary world is celebrating his 80 years in which he has come to be known as a playwright, poet and Nobel laureate. Here is a tribute: Soyinka at 80: Fully Humanized, Totally Dis-alienated.
5. Last week, BN Poetry Award announced their 2014 Longlist here. Congratulations and all the best to the poets! Thank you for writing those poems!
6.I am a huge fan of Kampala Capital City Authority’s Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi but my heart would explode with admiration if she worked on parks around the city and put there such benches. These are absolutely amazing!
The marmalade sandwich-loving bear from Darkest Peru is celebrated in this bench on the south bank of London’s Thames river. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/14/travel/uk-london-bookbenches/
7. Femrite’s July calender is about to get even more exciting as they host the First Regional Non-Fiction Writing workshop for Women and the nnual Femrite Week of Activities.
Save these dates:
16th July, 6pm to 8pm: Public Reading hosted with Goethe Zentrum Kampala at Mackinnon Road, Nakasero featuring Ugandan poet, Melissa Kiguwa.
28th July, 5.30pm to 8pm: Public Reading featuring Mamle Kabu, Yewande Omotoso and Dr Susan Kiguli in the BIG Hut at the National Theatre.
30th July, 3.30pm to 7pm: Public Dialogue on: African Women Writing their Stories; What difference does it make? This will feature AWDF’s Chief Executive Officer Theo Sowa, President and Founder of Femrite – Hon Mary Karoro Okurut, Director Regional Associates for Community Initiatives (RACI) – Dr Lina Zedriga, Mamle Kabu and Yewande Omotoso at Hotel Africana
1st August, 6pm to 8pm: Poetry bonfire night on the theme; Redefining Womanhood: A Celebration of Maya Angelou. Poets from Femrite, BNP Poetry Award, Lantern Meet of poets, Bonfire poetry, Poetry in Session, and other poets will read and recite Maya poetry and Maya inspired poetry at Uganda Museum.
See you there?
One day some day will be this day | Jason Ntaro
Photo by Edward Echwalu http://echwaluphotography.wordpress.com/
In my home, legal lies are scripted by the legal eyes to legalise my demise.
In my home, my roof of shelter leaks, and through the crack seeps a slime that prohibits my speak.
The kitchen from where I eat is where the providers cheat and take my lot for their own keep.
Where has our nature gone?
There was a time when words once spoke to the soul of man,
When sun of man learnt the chemistry of one.
When the strings around land were dust and feet.
Now the strings turned shackles are boots and concrete.
Humanity seems to stream on by, suffering an up waterfall climb.
Losing limb after limb… until nothing is left of kinsmen!
Scum has become the well we choose to drink from.
Deceit is the key so now we live to conform.
Ill-hearted darkness now becomes the norm.
And in the belly of our envy, the greatest evil is being reborn.
Our children are fed on brain drain and heart starvation,
Wrapped up in the beautiful bow pack of education.
Left to zombie the streets and litter the air with frustration.
Then we feel proud when we call them hooligan!
Slowly in the comfort of our thorny nest,
We fertilize our disconnect…
Our disconnect from our branch to trunk,
From trunk to root, from root to truth.
Our root has dried loose.
But who is to blame?
Us or those who we choose to rule us?
The rebels or those that feed the rebels gun lust?
Murderers or poverty’s card of injustice?
Or is it them?
They silently place their foot on your mouth.
They bib you and force you to feed their rout.
They embrace your hands and feet with shackles,
And blind your sight with their eye.
Their words are great weapons wielded with precession.
Their actions are in the open… as if a subtle warning
Dare to speak and you will follow soon.
So hush we go silent, but fester a storm.
For one day, a voice will come riding with a chant.
One day the spirits in the people will come out
One day the papers cast will finally count.
One day the mummified leaders will not politic about.
One day the marginalized will realise the players lies,
One day the children will see crystal clear through their own eyes.
Yet one day,
One day they will chop off the lips of he who sings of one day.
And one day, they will forget the sad song that was sang for this day.
Ugandan Poet, Jason Ntaro is a member of The Lantern Meet of Poets. He owes them his introduction into performance poetry and written poetry.
‘In high school I just did Literature to meet girls… I was from a single sex school and thought the best way to meet girls would be through poetry!’ he says.
You can find his poetry on his blog jntaro | voice and on Facebook. Ntaro usually performs at Poetry in Session every Last Tuesday of the month and Open Mic, every first Tuesday of the month.
7/7: Insanity seems to be following me everywhere…and this might be good!
1. Earlier this year, as Jalada, we published our first anthology that was loosely based on insanity. I wrote something in there on the topic but after reading the other stories, I did not give the topic of insanity another thought until I had to interview Jennifer Makumbi about her novel, Kintu. I have just finished the book and the theme of insanity is big in there! And just when I was done, I came across The Brainstorm Quarterly E-book, whose theme is (In) Sanity. What “Crazy” Looks Like. According to the introduction, the book is a collection of various stories by Kenyans about mental illness, about discovery, about stigma, about understanding and love.
In the interview with Makumbi, I asked her why Africans generally do not talk about mental illness:
SmsUg: But I have noted that in the West, people have acknowledged all types of insanity and have even made room for dealing with it whereas that is not the case in Africa. Being bipolar or having OCD is not our reality. The naked man that runs in the streets is the mad man and not the woman who kills her three children because they have no food to eat. What do you think of this?
Makumbi: Africa has no time for or patience with the nuanced aspects of mental illness. In fact, Africa has no time for any illness that has not been diagnosed with a lot of research and history behind it in our communities. So a woman who kills her children is not sick: she is just evil and bipolar is just an unbelievable hypocrisy, pretence, bunanfusi, and if they find out really that something is wrong, then you are bewitched. Sad, but that is the result of weak economies, hence no research.
The Brainstorm Quarterly has another Ebook, #WhenWomenSpeak: (Re)Defining Kenyan Feminisms, that you must read as well!
2. Now in its fourth year, the International Flash Fiction Competition is awarded to the best unpublished piece of fiction of 100 words or less. Writers can be from any country, and a maximum of two entries are permitted per person. Stories must be written in English, Arabic, Spanish or Hebrew, original, and unpublished. The winning story will be awarded the considerable prize of $20,000, with the best stories from each of the remaining three languages also receiving a $2000 runner up prize. Entry is free and stories can be on any subject. Click here for further information about the International Flash Fiction Competition.
3. As you prepare to write your 100 words for the Flash Fiction competition, you may be interested in reading some six word stories that have been written, much like Hemingway’s six-word story that read: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
You can read more here and here.
6. If you are looking for some wonderful stories by Africans to read, have a look at The African Book Club. Africa Book Club strives to promote African writing and bring the best African authors and stories to the world. This is what I recently read: Thereafter in Chwele.
7. Have I told you guys about my favourite writer on the internet? What?! I haven’t told you about Jackson Biko?
My apologies!
If you have not read Biko before, I hope you set aside time and try to catch up with what the rest of us have been enjoying. I love how Biko uses language to describe things so vividly and sometimes very delicately and how, even when he is writing about the saddest thing, he will find ways to make you smile. Biko’s stories about his daughter always make me so broody and sometimes, even a little envious of that little girl. There is a time Biko wrote about the Samsung S4 and I thought I was not reading about a gadget. And that is another thing I love. That he has range. That one day you will have tears in your eyes as you read about his father and another day, he will be making you fall in love with a phone. Please read Biko. Because life is too short for you not to read beautifully written stuff!
Have a wonderful week!
Chandler and Frasier: Kampala’s Most Wanted | Ernest Bazanye (a novel excerpt)
“Well done.”
“What?”
The old woman continued to smile broadly, all teeth and good nature. Her eyes were so squinted up with pleasant spirit that only bits of the black parts were visible. “Well done,” she repeated, confident that the young man could understand her.
The young man could not. Chandler was a thoroughly and totally and completely worthless schoolboy so he was not used at all to hearing those words, together, in that order. He met the repetition of her statement with the repetition of his own. “What?”
This is when his elder brother Frasier joined in the conversation, brusquely nudging in and scowling. “She means ‘Mugyebale’, you doofus.”
Well done was, after all, the exact transliteration of the common Luganda greeting Mugyebale and, this was Kampala, the city where most people spoke first and worried only later, if ever, whether their speech had made any sense. It was also a common thing for teenagers to be met by smiling old ladies grinning the words “Well done” at them. Chandler was still a boy. Only fourteen. The sum of his life experiences was still a little figure and he was yet to have seen it all. In fact, he was barely past the opening credits. His brother, who was sixteen, was much more world-weary, evidently, because Frasier had been greeted thus before. It is a thing to be thankful for when you have someone who has walked before you down the confusing pathways of adolescence to guide you on your way.
They were standing on a different pathway now: a narrow, windy-and-twisty backstreet of Muyenga, one of Kampala’s wealthier residential areas. All Kampala’s residential areas, no matter how gentrified, have windy-twisty secrets like this. Behind the shiny white maisonette where their mother lived and out of which she had just graciously kicked them, with the very un-maternal words “Either be less irritating or be elsewhere. The choice is yours,” and after they had made what seemed to them to be the far easier choice, they found themselves surrounded by low mud-and-wattle domiciles, barefoot children, and in a corner, a short yellow stand upon which a telephone stood.
It was ten thirty in the morning. The sun had just begun to get hot. Frasier’s baseball cap was turned to face backwards, but he was already thinking of, for once, making it face the right direction, if only to keep the sun out of his eyes. Chandler had thought of wearing sunglasses, but even he knew that such a deed would be even uncooler than wearing your cap facing the front. Who wears sunglasses in the morning? The old woman who completed the trio in this little tableau was bent slightly and draped all over in a fraying brown gomesi which may have had a discernible pattern on it at some moment lost in the mists of time but which now looked more as if it had been stained in its entirety. She just stood there and grinned at the boys. Chandler still wondered if she was sane. This was Kampala. Round those parts, sanity doesn’t grow on trees. Meanwhile, Frasier was getting impatient. He describes his attention span as being “as short as… forget it.” So when the old lady opened her rubbery mouth to repeat the words a third time, Frasier’s impatience cut her off.
“What can we do for you this morning, grandmother?” he asked in Luganda. Better not risk any further transliterations. His Luganda was, technically, polite, and his question was worded with the requisite respect for elders, but his tone was full of everything that is the opposite of respect. However, the woman hadn’t been savvy enough to pick on the fact that the confusion that blazed off the boy’s face when she first said the words “well done” would not dissipate if she repeated it, so she did not pick up on the fact that the other boy was sneering and snarling with impatience underneath his breath.
“Good morning and how was your night?” she beamed, because she was of a generation which does not stop greeting until at least a half hour has elapsed. This is one of the greatest obstacles to bridging the gap between the young and the old. The young are always in a hurry. The old have spent their whole lives wasting time and are not ready to break the habit yet. Not any time soon. Any time soon is not a concept they accept.
“I don’t really know. I was asleep for most of it,” Frasier replied. The impatience was beginning to show. The woman responded by humming one key. This is the traditional way of letting your correspondent know that you are ready for them to ask you, in turn, how your own night was.
“Is there something we can do for you?” Frasier asked, his teeth now gritted.
“My night was fine,” the old lady said, and hummed again as she warmed up for the next stage of the greetings.
Chandler, meanwhile, had moved on from being so bewildered by her first words and was now in awe. She seemed impervious to sarcasm, even though Frasier was all but beating her over the head with it.
“This woman is bulletproof!” he exclaimed.
Hearing English is what shifted her gears and saved them. She did not know how to drag a greeting on to infinity in English, but she did know some quantity of that language and would not mind showing off. So she turned to Chandler and said, “Here I have a chapat. And a pan. And a lindas. Do you love it?”
“Fraze?” Chandler said.
“Yes?” Frasier replied.
“I am back in the Twilight Zone.”
After they had bought some chapati, some mandaazi and passed on the sweet banana pancakes because it irritated Frasier that everyone called Kabalagala “pan” yet it wasn’t freaking pan, they finally got past the old lady and moved on to what it was that had them out of bed at this ungodly hour. The telephone which sat on a little stool painted in cracked yellow, with the logos of a number of mobile telecom companies inexpertly plagiarized along its length beneath the words “Paypohne. One Unnit 40 secs”. A very bored young woman barely looked up from her stupor to take their money and poke at the keys on her phone as Frasier recited the number of his father’s phone to her.
When the connection was made and the catatonic “payphone” woman had lapsed back into inertia, Frasier spoke into the receiver. He said, ebulliently: “Pappa dawg!”
“Who is this?” growled the other end.
“Who else would call you Pappa Dawg? You man, how many kids do you have?”
“I assumed I had two boys who were wise enough to know better than to call me silly names like ‘Pappa Dawg’ and ‘You man’.”
“I’m too old to call you daddy. I’m sixteen.”
“At sixteen you are barely old enough to wear your baseball cap facing the right direction.”
“Can I call you Muzeeyi? Is that acceptable?”
“I will accept Muzeeyi. It is the term I use to greet my own father. Muzeeyi is fine. We can proceed with it.”
“Muzeeyi. We need dime. Colour. Falanga. Brokeness has hit your offspring. Save the youth.”
“You are asking for money?”
“You are getting better at deciphering our slang, Muzeeyi.”
“No, I didn’t understand the words you just said. I just assumed you were either calling to ask how I am doing health-wise or you wanted money, and I decided not to kid myself.”
“So, can you hook a young brother up?”
“But Frasier, if you want money, why don’t you ask your mother? She’s still rich.”
“We asked her on Monday.”
“I’m sure she didn’t give you all of it. She must have some left.”
“When we ask her for money the second time in a week she always tells us to call and ask you. So we decided to skip the formalities and just come straight to you.”
In life there are choices, and then there are things that just look like choices but are actually forgone conclusions. Like any argument between Frasier and his father. They can go on for as long as the phone battery lets them but in the end there will be only one victor. And it has never been Pappa Dawg. The two boys took after their mother in this way. The last time he had ever had his way during any dispute between himself and her was when they were named during their infancies. As a fan of the hit television sitcoms of the time, he had been dying to name his sons after their star characters. Solome, their mother, was not keen on the names Chandler and Frasier, but claiming that their father insisted on naming them and there was nothing she could do was the only excuse she could use against her clan elders who would want the boys named after her grandparents. Solome did not want children named Jechonia and Zerubabel.
So a few hours later, there was a knock at Muzeeyi’s door and a bad word being spat out of his mouth. He kicked his slippers on, heaved himself up from his sofa and waddled up to the door to open it.
“Before you even think of it let me remind you that I will answer only to Muzeeyi. Nothing else.”
“Not even The Dad-Man?”
“Muzeeyi or squat. Well, if you would prefer to call me ‘sir’…”
“Muzeeyi, how are you?”
“I’m decent. Jack Bauer was just about to torture someone when you arrived.”
“You are still watching 24 DVDs? Didn’t that show end like years ago?”
“A classic never goes out of style, my boy. I will watch 24 until, if ever, I die. How come there is only one of you? Where’s Chandler?” he asked, looking out of the doorway and up the drive to see if the other boy was approaching.
Frasier let himself into the house and walked straight to the DVD player.
“Truth be told, I have no idea. I was with him when we got to the taxi stage. I was with him when we stopped the taxi. I was with him when I asked the taxi conductor if he will ever make enough money to afford a bath and that the last I remember seeing him.” And that was when Muzeeyi’s mobile phone bleeped.
“Hello?” he answered. “Chandler? Where are you? What? I swear. They really ought to amend that rule about not cursing in front of children. Well, turn around and get here. Frasier has already arrived. Okay.” He hung up. “That’s your bro. He got onto the wrong taxi and is on his way to Mukono.”
“I often think that mum lied to both of us, Dad. That is not your son and that is definitely not my brother. I can’t be related to him. How did he end up on the way to Mukono?”
“He’s definitely your mother’s son. She has weirdness in her family. Have you ever heard of your uncle Roger? If you haven’t it’s because they prefer not to talk about him…”
The older man’s voice trailed away to silence as he watched the boy and realized that his speeches were being lost on the air. Frasier was standing in front of the television. He poked at the DVD player. The tray slid open. He picked out the disc on it, sneered at it and all but threw it away. He scanned the pile of DVDs on the cabinet. His father gave up and turned back to the phone to dial for help.
“Solome? Hello, Solome? Your son is here. He is looking through my prized collection of almost 50 DVDs and preparing to sneer, in spite of all the evidence, that there is nothing to watch. No, only Frasier. Chandler? He’s on the way to Mukono. No, don’t ask. They want money, what else? I don’t understand, either. In my days we were taught to be self-sufficient, not to keep running to our parents every day begging for money. Me? Solome, I started working and earning money when I was seven– Seven years old! That’s the truth! What do you mean how come I’m always broke? Broke is relative. You, can we stick to the point? I don’t know, but I suggest some sort of income-generating activity. Yeah. Let them earn some money. Get them some sort of work… DUDE! YOU CAN’T WATCH THAT, IT’S AN ICE CUBE MOVIE FROM BACK WHEN HE STILL MADE GOOD MOVIES, SO EVERY THIRD WORD BEGINS WITH AN M OR AN F! YOU ARE TOO YOUNG FOR SUCH MOVIES. DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT. I KNOW YOU’RE SIXTEEN, BUT SO IS FREAKING MILEY CYRUS. What? No, Solome, I was talking to Frasier. No, I said ‘freaking’. ‘Freaking’ is allowed. Okay. Let me try to raise this boy right in as far as DVDs are concerned, but let’s think about this. We should get them jobs. Okay.”
When Chandler and his brother were reunited, it was to share bad news. Frasier’s face was dour and his tone was morose. The flap of his baseball cap drooped behind his head. He usually walked with that off-axis waddle boys of his age affect after watching rap videos starring people named “Lil” Something and tugging their trousers downwards, but even now, a casual observer could tell that this was no ordinary waddle. There was misery and woe in every unbalanced step as he made his way to the mall bench where his brother sat waiting.
“How was Mukono?” he asked. Chandler ignored the jibe.
“So? How much did you get?”
“We have bigger problems.”
“There is no bigger problem facing Africa’s youth than endemic poverty. True story. Kofi Anan said that.”
“Who’s Kofi Anan?”
“I don’t know. Probably a football player.”
“Well, Africa’s youth might prefer poverty to what is in store. They called each other on the phone and you know nothing good ever comes from Dad and Mom communicating.”
Chandler nodded melancholically to acknowledge the sadness of this fact of their family life. It was not easy being from a broken family.
Then Frasier continued. “They are getting us jobs for the holiday.”
The following process then played out across Chandler’s face. First he stared at his brother mutely, as if waiting for him to add something to that statement. Then he burst into laughter. Then that laughter turned nervous and ceased. Then he noted. “You’re serious?”
Frasier met the question with a stoic look.
Chandler could not accept this. “Have those two lost their minds?”
“Evidently,” Frasier replied.
Then Frasier proceeded. “You haven’t heard the worst part yet.”
“There’s a worst part?”
“Two. The first is what the job actually is.”
Chandler lifted his sagging jeans a bit so that he could take the bad news in comfort. “What is the job?” he asked when he was ready.
“We are going to be waiters, you man!” said Frasier.
“Noooooooo!”
Everyone else on that floor of the mall turned to look at them, expecting to see a doctor standing before them telling them something they had was inoperable.
“We are going to be waiters…” Frasier repeated.
“Nooooooooo!” Chandler repeated as well.
“…at Auntie Rosebert’s restaurant!”
This was supposed to be an upper-middle class haunt, this mall. It was meant to attract a clientèle from a certain social stratum. You know. Snobs. So when Chandler exploded again with “Noooooooooo!!!” many of them prepared to call the police.
Guest blogging: Interview with Ellah Wakatama Allfrey and Money-making Book Lovers
Please check out these two blog posts that I wrote for these websites:
On African Writers Trust:
Ellah Allfrey
African Writers Trust and Commonwealth Writers recently organised an Editorial Skills Development Workshop that I was lucky to be a part of. Lucky because one of the facilitators was Ellah Wakatama Allfrey who came along with another Editor, Vimbai Shire. I first met Ellah Allfrey last year at the Granta-Kwani?-British Council Workshop in Nairobi and I was extremely enthralled by how much information she gave us as writers and the questions that she asked that made me look at my work in ways I had never thought of.
Ellah Allfrey is the former Deputy Editor of Granta. Before Granta, she was Senior Editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House. She sits on the board of the Writers’ Centre Norwich, is Deputy Chair of the Council of the Caine Prize and a patron of the new Etisalat Prize for Literature. In 2011, she was on the judging panel of both the David Cohen Prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2012, she was chair of the fiction panel for the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Her journalism has appeared in the Telegraph and the Observer and she is a contributor to the book pages of NPR.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, Allfrey was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to the publishing industry.
Allfrey is series editor for Kwani?’s 2013 Manuscript Project. This year, she was the Chair of the judges for the Commonwealth Short story Prize where Ugandan writer, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi emerged winner with her story, Let’s Tell This Story Properly.
Allfrey also edited the Africa39 anthology that will be published in October this year.
I did mention here that Sooo Many Stories will be in conversation with other bloggers on the Storymoja Blog as we prepare for The Storymoja Festival. The conversations are as many and as varied as the bloggers. Do check them out.
Founded in 2008, The Storymoja Festival is a five day celebration of stories, ideas, writing and contemporary culture through storytelling, books, live discussion forums, workshops, debates, live performances, competitions, mchongoano and music.
It is organized in collaboration with Storymoja Publishers, the Hay Festivals (UK) and other local and international partners. The Festival, held every year in Nairobi attracts the most exciting local and international writers and thinkers. The Festival promises both engaging and stimulating discussions as well as light-hearted entertainment.The Schools Programme and the Storyhippo Village caters for families and children, as well as teens with programs and interactions that will be remembered for years to come.
I have never been to the festival but the few friends of mine that have been, have made me even more excited to be a part of this.
When it comes to a book, it is always the author that is celebrated. The reader is only remembered when that book has to be sold. But I have been thinking of friends of mine that live for books. They read much more widely than I will ever read (I am ashamed to admit), they have strong opinions about books from the covers to the language used to when is a good time to read a Salman Rushdie. They also always recommend to me books that they know I will love remembering that I struggle with Sci-Fi and that I am going through a Caribbean-Black American-African writers phase. Above all, they are very certain that they are not meant to write (trust me, they have been obviously asked why they don’t write the moment their love for books manifests itself). How do such people fit into the cycle of the book where they are more than just readers? How can their passion make them some or even load of money.
Look out for my interview with Vimbai Shire on her experience as a freelance editor and my other posts on the Storymoja blog.
Thanks a lot for reading!
7/7: On pidgin and broken English
1. You have to be very cautious when you are planning an event during the World Cup season or you will end up at your own event by yourself. Unless of course you are the Lantern Meet of Poets, holding your 10th recital and are brave enough to take the risk. And the risk did pay off because it was a full house yesterday when I attended the Lantern Meet and Friends poetry recital. It makes me very happy to see that the small group that had its first show in that small room at the National Theatre can have a full house and they still deliver the quality of work we have come to know them for. With each recital I find something new to enjoy, this time that they included performances in Luganda and Lusoga (very hilarious too!). It is also good to see new faces among the performers because this is a sign of growth! Great show Lantern Meet of Poets. Keep writing those poems! (More photos from the recital on the Sooo Many Stories Facebook Page)
2. I have been thinking quite a lot about our local languages and how they can be incorporated in English texts without distracting readers and without alienating readers that do not speak that language. I have found myself thinking of not only our local languages as we know them but also luyaaye (as popularised by Bobi Wine) and I have listened to Kiswahili speakers discuss Sheng.
Pidgin English may be spoken more amongst the uneducated masses but the educated masses have it as a second language at the very least. There are people who will never be able to, or even have no interest in speaking English; does that mean they are not entitled to information? They aren’t entitled to programming? Thank goodness the folks at WazobiaFM aren’t buying into that school of thought! Because while our educational systems are being upgraded, should the public be allowed to wander about, unaware of basic concepts critical to their comprehension of the world just because they are only fluent in Pidgin? All language is critical to the core of humanity’s existence—the concept of communication and interaction is far beyond appearances of “tooshness.” The US ambassador spoke Pidgin on WazobiaFM and endeared Nigerians…is he now mediocre or not “toosh”?
In official linguistic circles, the language is called West African Pidgin English. It came into being on the coast of Guinea in the 17th century when British merchants succeeded the Dutch as the prominent seafaring group stationed on the West African Coast.
– See more at: http://brittlepaper.com/2014/06/pidgin-english-language-ruona-agbroko-meyer/#sthash.HXljfChC.dpuf
In official linguistic circles, the language is called West African Pidgin English. It came into being on the coast of Guinea in the 17th century when British merchants succeeded the Dutch as the prominent seafaring group stationed on the West African Coast.
– See more at: http://brittlepaper.com/2014/06/pidgin-english-language-ruona-agbroko-meyer/#sthash.HXljfChC.dpuf
Pidgin English: A Language of Flowery metaphors, Slangs and Jokes | Q&A with Ruona Agbroko-Meyer – See more at: http://brittlepaper.com/2014/06/pidgin-english-language-ruona-agbroko-meyer/#sthash.HXljfChC.dpuf
Pidgin English: A Language of Flowery metaphors, Slangs and Jokes | Q&A with Ruona Agbroko-Meyer – See more at: http://brittlepaper.com/2014/06/pidgin-english-language-ruona-agbroko-meyer/#sthash.HXljfChC.dpuf
3. Still on language, Jamila Lyiscott in her powerful spoken-word essay Broken English, celebrates and challenges the three distinct flavours of English she speaks with her friends, in the classroom and with her parents. As she explores the complicated history and present-day identity that each language represents, she unpacks what it means to be “articulate.” Watch her here.
The best speculative fiction, like travel, does that to you – it takes you to strange places, from which vantage point you can no longer take your home for granted. It renders the familiar strange, and the strange becomes, for the duration of the story, the norm. The reversal of the gaze, the journey in the shoes of the Other, is one of the great promises of speculative fiction. Much of the time it doesn’t deliver, however. Much of the time you get to go to other worlds with your feet firmly encased in your own shoes, carrying around your perspectives and prejudices as though you had never left home.
6. If you have not had a chance to meet Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of Kintu, she will be at Femrites’ Readers/Writers Club from 5:30pm today. See you there?
Photo by Edward Echwalu http://echwaluphotography.wordpress.com/
What if Adam,
Had been created female?
Then maybe men too would have had the chance to savour the pleasures of child labour
And a tender bosom for an eternal companion…
What if
From Adam’s rib, slender and healthy,
Almighty had instead wrought a snake-ress
Then maybe, instead of just seduction,
Copulation too would have followed closely,
So Adam may have snake-lings to cuddle
In paradise…
What if,
The serpent of old hadn’t succeeded in
Seducing the woman;
Then maybe Adam’s sons today would not
Break a single sweat in seeking utmost glee
For skirts would never shroud paradise
What if, God had chosen for his original nation, not the bloody Jews
But a group of Batwa, neither scribes nor great story-tellers,
Then, maybe then, tales of a Black Christ
Would soon be going extinct with them
What if the earth were not a ball of curve
But rather a square with edges
Then maybe black men too,
Would have a corner they would call their own,
And it would river with peace, foam with liberty
A little cosy piece of paradise
What if,
Of Obama’s parents,
It had been his mother who was African,
Then maybe the leader of the free world
Would have been bred just over Kogelo,
And Kenya would have had herself a mulatto President…
What if tomorrow,
The sun took her long awaited vacation
To a summer spot in the Bahamas,
Then maybe we’d all for once
Get to have a good-day’s sleep
And a full day’s sleep too…
What if,
At independence Uganda hadn’t been named so,
Then maybe the mighty Buganda would today be Africa’s first world country,
And the rest of us,
Finally free men…
What if Sir Edward had been a Nabagereka?
Then maybe the only fire-baptism to rain upon the Lubiri that fateful 1966 night
Would’ve been the romantic flames of a premier seeking a royal Muganda Lady’s hand in marriage…
What if all the white men suddenly turned black,
Then maybe I’d march north to Oxford,
And finally claim my seat too in a decent classroom.
What if,
What if I stopped here?
Solomon Manzi is a member of The Lantern Meet of Poets. Watch the performance of this and other poems at their recital: Lantern Meet & Friends this weekend at the National Theatre. There will be shows on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th at 7pm. Entrance is Shs10,000.
See you there?
David Godwin on being a literary agent and what kind of book he is looking for
David Godwin
Let me be honest. I had never heard of David Godwin until recently. People kept telling me he was coming to Uganda in that way that people talk about someone that you obviously should know and should be excited about. So I set out to find out who he is.
Mr Godwin was in Kampala; meeting up with different writers, reading some works by Ugandan writers, teaching a class at Writivism and talking to editors. We met and he explained to me what the world of a literary agent looks like.
Did you have any background in the book industry before you became a literary agent?
Yes. I was a publisher at three different companies: Heinemann, Secker and Warburg and the last one was Jonathan Cape where we published a series of books. In fact while at Jonathan Cape, we published the only African book to win the Booker Prize which is Ben Okri’s The Famished Road.
What made you want to become an agent?
I was badly behaved as a publisher so they fired me (which was fine and right). But I loved Jonathan Cape, it is the best publishing house and so I saw no reason to go anyway else. I thought to myself, I might as well switch. I always liked the writers more than the publishing so the most obvious thing was to become an agent and that is what I did.
I read somewhere that it was because you wanted to be the Robinhood; get money from the rich publishers and redistribute it writers.
That’s true. I wanted to redistribute the money because when I was publisher, everyone had big, expensive cars in the car park and I remember looking at that and thinking, “I want to take the big cars from the publishers to the writers.”
Did you have a big car?
Yes I did and I do have one now. It’s funny actually. Some people want their agents to look successful so they will have a big car whereas others will think if you have a big car, you are only interested in money, in which case I would use a small car. So I have two cars, a big one and a small one, for my two lives as an agent.
What’s the difference between a publisher and a literary agent?
We have a writer, agent and publisher. So the writer starts the process, writes the book and sends it to the agent (this is in England). The agent sells that book to the publisher and handles the money and contracts and all those arrangements. The publisher then takes the manuscript and turns it into a book. He puts a cover, sends it out to lots of people, takes orders to put the book in bookshops and at the end of the day when accounts are rendered, he will send them to the agent working on behalf of the writer. Then the agent will pass the money from the publisher to the writer. As an agent, that is the part where I take my commission then send the rest to the writer.
So does the writer pay you when he hires you?
No. I only take from the money I earn for them so I don’t charge them anything. If it does not work out as well as I had hoped it would, then I earn less.
Are there books that you had great hopes for that never got published?
Yes there are. And sometimes some books take long to find a publisher which is sometimes very dispiriting. But you’ve got to try and do new things and sometimes doing new things means that they don’t get published as quickly as you would like.
Do you read the entire manuscript when you get it?
I should but sometimes I don’t for a number of reasons. Sometimes I don’t like them so I don’t finish them because I have lots of stuff to read. But I have read and finished all the books I sell.
Who does the marketing of the book after that?
The publisher does all that. An agent can look after it and have ideas and even meet with publishers and make suggestions about different things. But my job in that respect is to check on them and theirs is to actually do the work.
Do you ever go to look for books/ or talent or do they always come to you?
Yes I do look for things. It is what I am doing here in Kampala. I read things and if I find something I like and someone I would like to work with, I ask them to send me some work and see if I like it.
L-R: Ugandan writer Prof. Arthur Gakwandi, David Godwin and Ugandan writer/Femrite member, Davina Kawuma at the Monday Femrite Readers/Writers Club
Do you ever look at short stories?
Sure. I don’t mind. I don’t do a lot of stories but I could do them. I know there are lots of short stories coming from Africa when there should be more novels but I know it takes time to write novels. I understand that. Sadly publishers don’t tend to like short stories so much so that is a bit of a problem. The range of people you can work that with is smaller than one would like.
What do you look for in a manuscript?
Two things, really. I look for a voice (something distinctive in the telling of the story) and then I look for the story. The best books have good voices and good stories.
Sometimes people need help with how to tell a story. But you know, it is the simplest thing. It is like being in a bar with someone and you ask them to tell you something. Some people will tell you a story and it will go on for ages and you will be entranced while others will make a mess of it; they will get the order wrong, they aren’t interesting, there is no detail in the story or they are easily distracted.
So I want something that is plain, clear, simple and effective. Just interest me in whatever you have written.
So if you get someone that has a good story but are not telling it well, how do you help them?
It would depend. Right now I am here and doing some sessions with some writers, so we talk about the stories; what is wrong, whose point of view they could use to tell it and so on. In my job, because I have no time to do that because I have too much pressure on my time, if people send me stories and I read them or my son does, I have no time to say do it like this or like that. In that case I will either say I like it or I don’t.
But if I got to know the writer, once I have had a relationship with someone, maybe if I have sold a novel by them and they sent me short stories and I didn’t like them, we would talk about why I did not like them, what didn’t work and all that.
Do you ever read for pleasure? Books whose authors you have not worked with?
Yes. Of course I do. Well I am reading this (shows me Malcom Gladwell’s David and Goliath) and I was not his agent. You know the story of David and Goliath? So this book is about how people who you think are not going to win, win. I find he writes well and there are interesting stories. So yes I read loads of things for pleasure. And most of the books that I have published or represented have given me pleasure. Not all of them, but most of them.
How many manuscripts do you read say, in a week?
Quite a lot actually. May be two, three, four a week maybe? But they are usually a mixture of books. Some are books that have been published. I do lots of biographies and memoirs; I do some poetry, novels, short stories so there is a huge range. But even with that range they are all kind of posh; they are literary books not commercial books. I don’t intend to do detective stories or thrillers. It’s taste really, what you go for. I would do some more commercial books but I have quite enough to do in my time.
Are there authors you read and wish you had represented?
Sure! Oh yes! And sometimes they are writers I used to represent and they have left me and gone to someone else. Sometimes I read people I like and I will write them and tell them I like their work and some will reply and say, “Sorry. I am delighted but I have got a good agent” and that’s fine. Sometimes people write to my clients and ask them to leave or stay.
Do you have a favourite writer you wish you could represent?
There is a very good South African writer called Damon Galgut and he has an incredibly nice agent called Tony Peake for whom I have a lot of respect; really nice man. So even though I like Galgut, I am never going to write to him because I know his agent well. I doubt he would ever leave anyway and nor should he. I can’t think of the others now but yes there are people I would love to work with but it’s like pursuing another man’s wife; be very careful.
How do you advise someone to write a query letter?
First of all, find out as much as you can about the agent. Go to their website, find out what kind of books they do, their favourite books so that you know something about them. It’s just a nice thing to do. It is flattering. Then send them an email and show that you know something about them.
Dear David,
I would like to approach the agency…I know you represent abcd. I know you have agented this book which is one of my favourite books…
Then write an interesting paragraph about your book.
My own book is a memoir. I have grown up in Uganda I have been married to two husbands. The first husband treated me very badly, the second husband treated me very well. I now live in Kampala and this is a memoir of my life in Uganda. I also know you represented Binyavanga, who also wrote a memoir. I read his book and mine is quite similar and I think you will like it.
If I got a letter like that I would say, yes, send the manuscript right away. I may not like the manuscript in the end but I will read it.
Other agents will say they want a synopsis and chapter which I don’t have a strong view about. I think it is nice to get someone interested in what you’re doing straight away. I feel it’s a bit like having a conversation with someone that is kind of intimate in some way, you know? Rather than be shouted at like:
Dear Sir, attached is the synopsis and three chapters.
When I get such an email, I know they have sent it to lots of people, which is fine, but then I have to open it up and then look at it. Just make it easy for me. Interest me in who you are.
If you came here and started shouting about your blog, I would say I am sure you are good woman but I am going to pass. But here we are and it is natural. There are no big rules, really but I think this is nice way to do it. It is more friendly.
What do you think of the opinion that a poet does not need an agent?
It depends. True and not true. There is a poet I work with called Simon Armitage but he does more than poetry. He does memoirs, film, TV, Theatre, a couple of novels but he is primarily a poet. Someone like him needs an agent. There are some other poets that could use an agent; they have published several editions around the world, there is lots of money involved and an agent would be in control of all those aspects of the poet’s life and make sure the books are published properly. A young poet starting out probably does not need an agent but as time goes on they may need one. And they may need more than one publisher if say he is published in Uganda but wants to be published in England as well. In that case they would need an agent. Having said that, there are a lot of poets around but most agents won’t take them. It is too complicated, there is not much money in it and takes a lot of work. I might do it but I wouldn’t go out to look for a poet. I don’t even read that much poetry. I am just learning to.
What should I look out for when I am choosing an agent?
The first thing I would look at is if they represent books that I like or are similar to the ones I like and write. As a Ugandan, I would look for agents that are working with African writers (and they aren’t that many). I would also recommend the Handbook that Goretti [Kyomuhendo] has written about writing. It explains a lot about publishing and she names some agents in there. That is the best advice I could give to a young writer.
If I may, I feel that that Handbook* should be free. Of course I don’t expect Goretti to do it for free but the best thing any institution here could do is to buy copies and make them available to people. Commonwealth Writers for example could buy the rights to publish it as an e-book and make it available for free. It is good and useful. Writing is hard work so if you have managed to write, it makes sense to understand the book world so you don’t mess up the book you worked really hard on.
We don’t have literary agents here, how does one become a literary agent?
You can say to yourself, “I am now a literary agent”. Say to yourself, I am going to set up something called The Kakoma Literary agency. It is as simple as that. What that means is then you would have to find publishers here that would be interested in short stories and novels. You have to know each one of them. You have to be a good judge of what a good book is. Sometimes you just need to be lucky. You then have to find a crucial book; a good book that changes everything, a book that everybody wants. You would then have to think about how to get that book around the world so then you would go to another literary agent in the UK. I have got people in India who write to me about books they love and ask me to have a look at them and if I like them I say yes. If I don’t, it’s a no.
Then you would have to handle the money and you have to be very efficient with that. When the money comes in, you take your commission and then send the rest to the writer. You have to be completely above board and quick with the money otherwise people will think you are just sitting on it.
The best thing is to do it as a passion. Do it to champion people’s work.
I would also advise you to spend as little as possible in the beginning. If you can do it at home, do that. Don’t get an office you cannot pay for. Once you get the money you can think of how to spend it but don’t rush it.
Is that how you started?
It’s exactly how I started. I had a desk in a big room and my wife did the money.
You have written a book, Breaking 80 about golf. Were you your own agent?
I was and it was a terrible deal but I was so pleased to be published and it was a good reminder that the basics are not so simple.
But you weren’t as worried as the first time writers who know no one in the industry are…
Oh of course I was! Would the publisher like it? Were they doing enough? Were there terrible marks in the book? Would they support the book or were they saying, “God this is so embarrassing”. They made editorial suggestions about the book and their enthusiasm for the book was important.
It was nice to do. There was a nice picture of me and my dog on the cover so it was quite fun to do. Lots of people around me have read it, clients of mine have read it and liked it and its quite modest so it is not competitive with them. I was just thrilled about it.
Will you write again?
Well, I don’t know what to write about. Something called Breaking 70 maybe?
A memoir maybe.
No. There are bits of memoir in Breaking 80 but they are very simple. I don’t have much memory about things and I don’t think my life is that interesting so I wouldn’t do a memoir. But I actually enjoyed doing it. Much more than I expected.
What are you currently working on?
I am doing a book on swimming which is something I am interested in and another by a young man set in Detroit. And I am also reading some stories by Ugandans.
What is the next book you are looking for?
When Gabriel García Márquez wrote One Hundred Years Of Solitude, it was a book that transformed everything because it was loved in Latin America. If I am going to find a book in the next five years from Africa, it is one that should be loved by Africa. All these books these days are about leaving Africa, going elsewhere. They are books about starting here but end up in America. They are marvellous books but I would like a book that is about here; living here, life in Kampala and the like. A book by someone who has a story to tell and can write and lives here. All my best Indian writers like Arndhati Roy do that. I am looking for that equivalent here. It would break my heart if I don’t get that kind of book.
David Godwin speaks at the Monday Femrite Readers/Writers Club
Thank you, David. I enjoyed this and learnt a lot!
*The Essential Handbook for African Creative Writers by Goretti Kyomuhendo is available in Ugandan bookshops at Shs20,000 and on Amazon.
7/7: Sooo Many Stories is a Storymoja Festival 2014 participant!
I attended an Editorial Skills Workshop with Commonwealth Writers and African Writers Trust where I not only had a chance to meet editors from East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda) but also had the privilege of being taught by Ellah Allfrey and Vimbai Shire. It was intense and fun and gruelling and eye-opening and fun! I will publish something related to the workshop later this week.
AWT’s Goretti Kyomuhendo thanks Vimbai and Ellah at the end of the Editing Skills workshop.
2. And you know you have had a great week when you carry home as many books as I did!
3. I am also happy to tell you that Sooo Many Stories is a Storymoja Festival 2014 participant. What that means is I will be writing about issues I care about and publish them on the Storymoja Festival Blog.
I am excited to talk to readers across the borders and be associated with Storymoja. The conversations have already started. Check them out here.
4. Are you in Nairobi this weekend? Kwani? has events on 28th and 29th of June. On June 28, meet the three writers shortlisted for the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature – NoViolet Bulawayo, Yewande Omotoso and Karen Jennings at 5pm at Nairobi National Musuem . On June 29, the Sunday Salon will feature writers from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.Check for details on their Facebook Page.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi autographs her book, Kintu, for a reader in Kampala at Aristoc. Makumbi will be at Kwani?’s Sunday Salon
5. You can now apply for The Miles Morland Foundation 2014 scholarships. This is why it is granted:
It can be difficult for writers, before they become established, to write and to earn a living outside writing at the same time. To help fill this need the MMF awarded three Morland Writing Scholarships in November last year.
6. At 5:30pm today, NoViolet Bulawayo and some of the winners of the 2014 Writivism Shortstory Prize will be at the Femrite Readers’/Writers’ Club. Do passby for some inspiration or just to chat with the writers.
7. I am so happy to announce the winners of our very first giveway! As I told you last week, Writivism gave us 10 copies of the 2014 anthology, Fire In The Night and Other Stories.
Here are the winners:
-Brenda Banura: For coming by the book signing at Aristoc, buying two books and sharing it on social media.
-Timothy Kiranda, Mbabazi Ntezi, Kyomm Amani, Belinda Kyomuhendo, Racheal, Ruthaine, Gloria N Rugadya and Barbarah Oketta for leaving comments on the Sooo Many Stories Facebook page or the blog itself. Thank you for reading and supporting us.
-To The Sound Cup at Garden City: Because your cute bookshelf needs a book by African writers.
Have a fulfilling week, friends!
7/7: Fire In The Night And Other Stories giveaway
1. I don’t know about you but this Oatmeal illustration shows exactly how I have been feeling since The World Cup began. I have come so close to complaining about the noise but I have often stopped to consider that this may be how other people feel when I go on and on and on and on about things they would never care about that I die for. Good thing is, it’s only for a month, right?
2. So…Jennifer Makumbi won that Commonwealth Prize and gave us one more reason to be happy about being Ugandans. If you have not yet read her award-winning story, Let’s Tell This Story Properly, here it is.
3. 14 years ago Sudanese author, Leila Aboulela won the first edition of the Caine Prize. She has since published a short story collection, Colored Light and two novels: Minaret and Lyrics Alley. Read this interview to find out what it was like to be the first winner of this prestigious award.
5. The African Authors Google Hangout with JamesMurua.com this Thursday will feature Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Abubaker Adam Ibrahim. They will discuss the Writivism Festival that will be taking place this week, starting Wednesday 18th. This is how you can be a part of it.
6. Today we celebrate the International Day of The African Child. I did not read a lot of African Literature when I was growing up until I discovered the Pacesetters novels!
What books did you read growing up?
7. Our very first giveway! The Writivism team is generously giving us 10 copies of Fire In The Night And Other Stories, the 2014 Writivism Anthology. The book will be launched on June 20 at 9pm at The National Theatre where the Writivism Festival will be taking place. There are two ways you can win a book:
a) read the shortlisted stories here and vote for your favourite by leaving a comment on your favourite story to stand a chance of winning.
