THE PORTAL FOR AFRICAN LITERATURES, WRITERS, AND FILMS

African continent is replete with brilliant writers, and filmmakers that are world-renowned. The main objective of indigokafe is to showcase and present African literatures, writers and filmmakers worldwide.

 

 

 

Literatures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Books and all forms of writing have always been objects of terror to those who seek to suppress the truth.” -Wole Soyinka, The Man Died: The Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka.

 

Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

 

 

Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie:

Speech at the Christopher Okigbo International Conference at Harvard University

 

Black Short Fiction and Folklore:

Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa:

 

 

Kofi Anyidoho, Ghana

 

 

"The Role of a Scholar in a Postcolonial World." By Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

On March 30 2005, The UO International Studies presented Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenyan novelist and human rights activist, speaking on "Planting African Memory: The Role of a Scholar in a Postcolonial World."

 

 

Camwood at Crossroads: By Femi Euba

Book Description:

A philosophical novel about exploitation, in particular the evangelical factor. Olumofin, a Nigerian Attorney now living in the US, stands at the intersection of culture-crossings implicating the fate of his African identity within the American world, especially that of his intended intimacy with an African-American Creole. In an attempt to come to terms with the past, initiated by present criminal currents in the news media regarding the depraved religious practices of his estranged father, he unleashes, through shifting thought processes that cross from Lagos to New Orleans, the demons of exploitation (humorous as well as tragic) that have defined his colonial upbringing and the cross-cultural paths of his future African-American in-laws.

 

About the Author:

Professor of Theatre and English at Louisiana State University. Practicing playwright, director, actor and a scholar, Femi Euba received an MFA in Playwriting and Dramatic Literature, and an MA in African-American Studies from Yale, and a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Ife in Nigeria. His plays include the award-winning The Gulf, The Eye of Gabriel and several radio plays for the BBC Radio. Although he began writing short stories at an early age, Camwood at Crossroads as his first novel unreservedly adds fiction to his literary output as a creative artist.

"Highly Recommended! The novel Camwood at Crossroads is a tapestry of words akin to the art-house films of Krzysztof Kieslowski....A superbly written novel, lyrical, and descriptive."--Editor, Indigokafe and Cafeafricana.com

 

To purchase Camwood at Crossroads: Go to amazon.com

Bibliography of Femi Euba:

 

 

 

Wole Soyinka: By Funmi Iyanda

 

 

Nigeria's Stumbling Democracy and its Implications for Africa's Democratic Movement: Edited by Oguejiofor Okafor

Book Description:
Nigeria's Stumbling Democracy and its Implications for Africa's Democratic Movement is the first book to recount and analyze Nigeria's controversial general elections of April 2007. Because Nigeria's immense and diverse population of 140 million people and its wealth of natural resources make it a microcosm of Africa, Nigerian politics are an ideal case study and bellwether by which to view and understand African politics and the ongoing democratic experiments on the continent. Ten leading scholars of Nigerian and African politics, variously based in Nigeria, the US, and Europe, contribute original chapters commissioned by Professor Okafor to provide an account at once deep and comprehensive of what went wrong with these disputed presidential, federal, and state elections; together with their implications for the future of the democratic movement, both in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole. Although the 2007 general elections resulted in the first-ever handover of political power from one civilian government to another in the history of Nigeria, by which the two-term Christian president Olusegun Obasanjon was succeeded by a Muslim, Alhaji Musa Yar'Adua, they were condemned by internal and international watchdogs for pervasive vote-rigging, violence, intimidation, and fraud which were, as this book documents, perpetrated by and with the connivance of the nation's security forces. The disappointment of continental hopes that these elections might finally break with Nigeria's history of tainted elections has grave repercussions for the democracy movement not only in Nigeria but throughout Africa-as seen in the knock-on effect upon the disastrous general elections in Kenya later the same year.

About the Author:
VICTOR OGUEJIOFOR OKAFOR is Professor of African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University. He directed African American Studies at North Carolina State University. He is the author of several books on Africology, including A Roadmap for Understanding African Politics: Leadership and Political Integration in Nigeria, which won a 2007 International Cheikh Anta Diop Conference award. As senior editor of the news department of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, he covered Nigerian national elections. He served as a staff reporter for The Daily Times of Nigeria.

 

Plumas en alquiler-Feathers in rent (Wole Soyinka, Nigeria)

 

Lawless & Other Stories: By Sefi Atta

From Zamfara up north to the Niger Delta down south with a finale in Lagos, this collection of stories and a novella are inspired by newspaper headlines and narrated by a range of Nigerian voices. Atta's stories have earned recognition in contests such as the Zoetrope Short Fiction Contest, Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Award, Red Hen Press Short Story Award, the PEN International David TK Wong Prize and the Caine Prize.

“The majesty of one woman's spirit provides the backdrop for the opening story: a tale of unrelenting domestic abuse, and institutionalized cruelty and injustice in the name of Sharia. A powerful beginning to a collection of stories structured around greater or lesser violations of God's law or Man's....Finally, after the darkness of the ‘Lawless' stories, ‘The Miracle Worker' was refreshing. At the story's end, the wife's response to her husband's financial ruin made me smile the ‘I give up' smile: sometimes the wit of a story lies in the relentless logic of its ending.” – Olatoun Williams

“With this collection of stories, Soyinka Prize-winning author Sefi Atta consolidates her position as one of the leading writers of her generation. The stories, which take us from Zamfara to Mississippi, with many points in-between, are written with quiet virtuosity. Atta's control of tone is remarkable, especially given that she often takes on subjects—immigration, religion, domestic abuse—that in lesser hands tend to become polemical or preachy. What we get from Atta are compulsively readable tales, leavened with a sly wit and a generous vision.” – Teju Cole author of Every Day is for the Thief

 

 

 

Ben Okri discusses his approach to writing

 

 

Swallow: By Sefi Atta

Book Description:

It is the mid 1980s in Lagos and the government's War Against Indiscipline and austerity measures are fully in operation. Tolani Ajao is a secretary working at Federal Community Bank. A succession of unfortunate events lead Tolani's roommate and colleague, Rose, to persuade her to consider drug trafficking as an alternative means of making a living. Tolani's subsequent struggle with temptation forces her to reconsider her morality and that of her mother Arike's, as she embarks on a turbulent journey of self-discovery.

"A heart -wrenching novel about family, friendship, love, betrayal, poverty, and the resilience of the human spirit...Highly Recommended."--Editor, Indigokafe and Cafeafricana.com.

To purchase Swallow: Go to amazon.com

 

 

 

Acerca del poema de David Constantine (Jack Mapanje, Malawi)

 

 

 

Say You're One of Them: By Uwem Akpan

Book Description:

Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Akpan transports the reader into gritty scenes of chaos and fear in his rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa. An Ex-mas Feast tells the heartbreaking story of eight-year-old Jigana, a Kenyan boy whose 12-year-old sister, Maisha, works as a prostitute to support her family. Jigana's mother quells the children's hunger by having them sniff glue while they wait for Maisha to earn enough to bring home a holiday meal. In Luxurious Hearses, Jubril, a teenage Muslim, flees the violence in northern Nigeria. Attacked by his own Muslim neighbors, his only way out is on a bus transporting Christians to the south. In Fattening for Gabon, 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his younger sister are sent by their sick parents to live with their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who in turn explains to the children that they are going to live with their prosperous godparents, who, as Kotchikpa pieces together, are actually human traffickers. Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror—and there is much—is seen through the eyes of children. (June) Read a web-exclusive q&a with Uwem Akpan at www.publishersweekly.com/akpan. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.----From Publishers Weekly-

 

Writers:

 

Every Day is for the Thief: By Teju Cole

Book Description:

A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence.  Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future. Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel.  He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues.  The question is: should he stay or should he leave?

 

 

Oyiza Adaba Interviews Chinua Achebe Part 1

 

Wole Soyinka	Nadine Gordimer	J.M. Coetzee	Christopher Okigbo
Nobel Laureate 1986	Nobel Laureate 1991	Nobel Laureate 2003	Poet
Nigeria, West Africa	South Africa	South Africa	Nigeria, West Africa

 

 

Nadine Gordimer on Racism

 

26a: By Diana Evans:

Book Description:

The attic room at 26a Waifer Avenue in the lower-middle-class London neighborhood of Neasden is a sanctuary for identical twins Georgia and Bessi Hunter. It is a private universe where fantasy reigns as well as an escape from the sadness and danger that inhabit the floors below. Here the girls share nectarines and forge their identities -- planning glorious success as the Famous Flapjack Twins -- well removed from their Nigerian mother, Ida, who, devastated by homesickness, speaks to the spirits of the family she left behind on another continent. On occasion Georgia and Bessi's older sister, Bel, and younger sister, Kemy, are admitted into their broad, bright and fanciful realm, but never their English father, who nightly bathes the wounds of his own upbringing in far too much drink...

 

 

  

On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler talks with Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. In an extraordinarily prolific and rich body of work including plays, novels, poems, and essays, Professor Soyinka draws on both Yoruba and western culture to exquisitely weave a subtle understanding of the tragedy and comedy of the human condition. Series: Conversations with History [10/2002] [Humanities] [Show ID: 6797]

 

 

Professsor Ngugi wa Thiong'o

UC Irvine 2008

 

Half of a Yellow Sun: By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

Book Description:

With the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Ugwu is houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor who sends him to school, and in whose living room Ugwu hears voices full of revolutionary zeal. Odenigbo's beautiful mistress, Olanna, a sociology teacher, is running away from her parents' world of wealth and excess; Kainene, her urbane twin, is taking over their father's business; and Kainene's English lover, Richard, forms a bridge between their two worlds. As we follow these intertwined lives through a military coup, the Biafran secession and the subsequent war, Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise, and intimately, the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place.
Epic, ambitious and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a more powerful, dramatic and intensely emotional picture of modern Africa than any we have had before.

 

Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond: By Biyi Bandele:

Book Description:

The relationship between a student and a literary teacher provides the framework for this clever novel-within-a-novel. A teacher, Maude, is enamored of a girl in a bar. He writes the story of her former boyfriend, and Maude's student is the first person to read the novel. Capturing modern Nigeria with its decaying standards, militarism, and poverty, Bandele Thomas's prose also yearns on every page for something good and worth holding onto in society.

 

 

Books by Prof. Oyekan Owomoyela:

 

Ayi Kwei Armah , Amos Tutuola, D.O Fagunwa, Naguib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe, Toyin Falola

Ama Ata Aidoo, Moses Isegawa, Camara Laye, Kateb Yacine

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Helon Habila, Helen Oyeyemi

 

Films:

 

The Library of African Cinema: Films from Africa made by Africans offer restorative images and a new film language. The beautiful and sometimes challenging films in this collection not only showcase the works of master filmmakers but also innovative new talents who are embracing video technology. To see Africa through African eyes will break stereotypes and enlighten viewers about life in Africa. --CN

 

 

Peter Scarlet interviews Abderrahmane Sissako, the director of "Waiting for Happiness." Find out more about the making of this carefully observed film about a young man's return to the traditional Mauritanian village of his youth, and hear more about Sissako's latest film, "Bamako."

 

 

Moolaade (2004): Directed by Ousmane Sembene

In an African village this is the day when six 4-9-year-old girls are to be circumcised. All children know that the operation is horrible torture and sometimes lethal, and all adults know that some circumcised women can only give birth by Caesarean section. Two of the girls have drowned themselves in the well to escape the operation. The four other girls seek "magical protection" (moolaadé) by a woman (Colle) who seven years before refused to have her daughter circumcised. Moolaadé is indicated by a coloured rope. But no one would dare step over and fetch the children. Moolaadé can only be revoked by Colle herself. Her husband's relatives persuade him to whip her in public into revoking. Opposite groups of women shout to her to revoke or to be steadfast, but no woman interferes. When Colle is at the wedge of fainting, the merchant takes action and stops the maltreatment. Therefore he is hunted out of the village and, when out of sight, murdered. Written by Max Scharnberg, Stockholm, Sweden

 

Moolaade (2004)