Special focus was placed on Nigerian authors and their new books during the 18th edition of the Lagos Books and Arts Festival (LABAF) held at Freedom Park, Lagos. Edozie Udeze reports
Lagos Books and Arts Festival which ended last weekend in Lagos, was an opportunity to showcase many new books by Nigerian writers. The session of the fair dealing with authors and their new books was aptly titled New Conversation – New Nigerian fiction: status update. The eight authors involved in the discussion around their books included Sam Omatseye (My Name is Okoro), Diekara Oloruntoba-oju (When Lemons Grow on Orange Trees), Obinna Udenwe (Satan and Shaitans), Henry Akubuiro (Prodigals in Paradise), Toni Kan (The Carnivorous City) Obanya (Ijambody), Echezona Ogochukwu (Destiny Vows), and Rex Odoemenam (Far Together). To begin with, each author was asked by the moderator, Jumoke Verissimo, to make an opening statement to help situate the origin and genesis of the ideas and concepts of his/her work.
That done, each was made to read from a portion of the book best suited to him/her. But basically the discussions revolved around the direction and shape which local narratives are taking these days. Are the stories really addressing the Nigerian situation and what the people stand for?
Omatseye, the editorial chairman of The Nation newspapers, started thus: “My Name is Okoro takes the tag of the minority experience during the Nigerian Civil War which I think has been grossly under-narrated in the Nigerian Civil war literature. The scene here is in the Biafran heartland about somebody who is supposed to be an Igbo man. He has an encounter with one of the Igbo women in the camp. Now, it says, I will send a soldier now and we’ll see real madness. That comment came from nowhere. Emeka, as most people called him in his absence came around after the soldiers left. Two soldiers accompanied him …”
Here Omatseye situates the story of the circumstances of the birth of Ojukwu whose mother was Hausa and father Igbo from Nnewi. If then Ojukwu’s mother was Hausa, was he justified in waging a war against his own uncles, cousins and other blood relations from up North? That shows perhaps that Ojukwu was not deeply convinced that the war was a worthy exercise. Yet, he fought it for the sake of ego and pride.
Concerning the essence of book reviews and how they relate to books, Omatseye explained that it is important to review a book, but it is more necessary for people to read to grasp the real messages contained in the narratives. He said: “Reviews, like prizes are opinions of few people. And this cannot legislate the quality of a work because of one man’s opinion or a panel’s decision. So you have to realise that when you write, you are writing for the general audience, a specific audience if you want. I actually prefer it when somebody has read my work and speaks to me one-on-one. This is what I think, this is what I like and this is what I don’t like. Those are more important to me… Of course, reviews are important to the extent that they indeed get the work out”.
Even though authors differed in varying degrees on this topic, they nonetheless agreed that the essence of books is to dwell more on the issues that pertain to the people. For Obanya who read from his latest work titled Ijambody his primary preoccupation is that people should not write in foreign languages. Thus, to him, this does not augur well for the well being of not only literature but the growth of indigenous languages. “But you see, my psyche gets challenged by the fact that we are promoting foreign languages as against our local ones. This process gets to promote the coloniser’s language – the English language. As writers, let’s see how we can focus on what we have to write our stories”, he said.
While his presentation got knocks from here and there, the important thing is that there are stories to be told. These stories must get to the table and knowledge of the public. To this end, Akubuiro said, “You see, when I write, I try to express myself and also communicate to my readers”. Dwelling on his debut work, Akubuiro took a swipe at the busy nature of Lagos and the pros and cons of its boisterous configuration. He x-rays its negative and positive nuances particularly as it relates to a J.J.C (Johny Just Come). He said further: “So, I expect my readers to read and enjoy my book and be enlightened the more. I expect them to learn one or two things from my work and then form their own opinion. Basically, I entertain the reader, aside teaching him one or two things. This is what my book set out to do”, he opined.
In his response, Udenwe, an engineer by profession referred to his work and said, “Oh basically, I do not write to compare my work with others. My job is to write what I feel, what I see and that is why I am here to write. My work is on terrorism. It is the trend now and for me it is to teach the society a lot of lessons on the issues at hand. Often, we do not discuss these issues. We shy away from them and that is why I have written about it. For me, the issue of terrorism is a recurrent decimal in our socio-political life.”
For Diekara, her work was not a response or reaction to other people’s previous books. She said, “I did not respond to other authors or writers. I got my ideas from what happened to people around me. At other times, what I read in the newspapers everyday also informed the direction my work took”. Diekara, a student of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ife, Osun State, concentrated her attention on rape and why the society has not been able to tackle the monster. She said again and again, “rape is rampant these days. Yet it is not as engaging in social discourses as it ought to be. For me, it is time to reflect on it and see why a lot of people are now engaged in it. Even then, we can focus on the role of the church in this matter and we have to review its traumatic effects on the people concerned,” she further reasoned.
For Odoemanam whose work came in three forms – poetry, prose and drama, “This is what I have always wanted to explore to see how it gets to the public. It is not entirely a new experiment. But it conveys to the reader a broader perspective of the three genres of literature. In it, you explore what appeals to you most. For me, however, the most important thing is that the message is not lost on the people. This is why it is Far Together, an avenue to explore that puzzling newness that makes a novel alive. For me then it is still an ongoing experiment.”
Echezona in her contribution reiterated that her work is not totally and exclusively on divorce cases in the society. “It is basically on the erosion of family values in Africa. The idea came to me from what I see from time to time. We must know and realise that the rate of divorce in Nigeria is on the increase. So, this is a story that came to me and it is part of what we live with day in day out. Yes, it is a love story mixed with its ups and downs as it relates to a home, to a couple. So, you can see that I talk about marriages, love and hate. Two people are in love; they profess to love till death do them part. Then suddenly hate, deep-rooted hate, sets in. In the end, divorce comes in… Oh, I got the inspiration to write it from my relatives, from what I saw from their life style,” Echezona decided.
Toni Kan whose work has just been released harped on the need to see book reviews as not only important, but an essential process of letting the public into the know about the work. “This is important not only to the author, but also to the public who wishes to know more about the book. It is not proper for one to dispute the importance of book reviews in the process of getting the book to the attention of the people”, he said.
In conclusion, Professor Femi Osofisan, the special guest of honour at the occasion, said; “I am happy Nigerian Literature is going places. The language, the themes, the structures of the narratives, we’ve just listened to today, shows that each writer here is great. By this, I mean, we are growing. The standards are good and quite high. Literature in Nigeria is alive and vibrant.” Yet for literature to prosper more, all ingredients necessary to get the works to the public glare – publishing, marketing, readership, encouragement and the like, have to be in place. Literature cannot totally grow if the enabling environment is not always there. The Lagos Books and Arts Festival is, above all, the handiwork of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) spearheaded by Jahman Anikulapo and Toyin Akinosho.
