A review of Dul Johnson's Melancholia.

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Melancholia.

A play by Dul Johnson.

Sevhage, 73pp,2014.

Dul Johnson started writing plays in 1976, with radio plays for Rima radio, Sokoto.  He wrote many television plays for NTA in the 80s and 90s. He writes across the genres and has published two collections of short stories, Shadows and Ashes (1998) and Why women who make it to heaven (2003) and a novel Deeper into the night (SEVHAGE, 2014).

 Melancholia was first performed as a class production workshop by 200 level students of the department of theatre and cultural studies, Nassarawa state university, on March 6^th, 2014.

In the play Mumude a presidential aspirant of the progressive front party wants to be the next president and invested one hundred and sixty billion in his campaign. He said to his uncle Dangiwa‘‘I’ve borrowed a lot of money from the banks and from friends; my political  associates. I’ve also sold off, or should I say, mortgaged ten of my buildings in the state and five in the Federal Capital, which I hope to get back on becoming the president.

The play was written in two acts and the author used both situational and verbal irony in the two acts. In Act one, the author used realism to highlight the play and at the end of the act he withholds information that is important to move the play forward.

In Act two, the author used psychological realism and at the end we are asked a good question, who is the African Politician? This book can be acted on by Literature students in secondary schools because it’s funny and educative.  I recommend this book to everyone especially the aspiring politician.

                                                            

Planning A Library For Government Schools With Low budget.

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There is a need to improve the reading culture in Nigeria. Reading is beneficial because it can open the mind of children and improve critical thinking.

Reading helps children to excel and improve their class work and it also makes better leaders.

Thirteen steps to make a small school library in schools with low budget.

-The teacher can make a school project called titled ‘making a class library.’

- Make a list of the class  and ask them to tell about the books they will like to read, e.g. books about sport, friendship, family, folktales, animals etc.

- Look for book titles suitable for the class age range.

- Contact a local bookshop and ask the bookshop for help with books suitable for children or research on the Internet.

- Make another list equal to the number of children in the classroom and ask each child to pick a book they like.

 -Send a note to the parents explaining about your school project and asking to buy the book selected by the student.

- Write the name of each child on his book.

- Children should read the books they have bought and submit the books to their teachers after they are done.

- Build a small shelf in a corner of the classroom or convert a desk into a book safe.

- Appoint a class library prefect and keep a notebook to keep track of the books borrowed by students.

- Children are encouraged to borrow books from the library.

- At the end of the term, they can each write a book report on the books they bought and a book article on any other book they liked.

- The project can take 10 marks in English comprehension.    

 The benefit of this exercise includes, teaching children how to be involved in community projects, teaching love and sharing, giving children access to more books, and improving reading culture in government schools.

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This is how to stay Married, A review of the domestication of Munachi.

  the domestication of Munachi

    by Ifesinachi O. Okpagu
     Parresia  Books,2015. 

Ifesinachi O. Okpagu published her first novella when she was fourteen, she is now a Lagos based marketing communications executive. She has published some short stories in sentinel Nigeria, femrite anthology and saraba magazine.

 The book has themes of marriage,domestic abuse, spinsterhood and is a psychological slice of life. The author has a great sense of humour and this book should be read by every  woman. 

 Marriage is an important aspect of African culture, growing up as a girl the best day of your life was your wedding day. Single women are serenaded with talks of marriage, everyone gives advice on getting married even the woman who closes herself in the bathroom and cry every morning.  She has only one comfort- she is a respectable married woman.

‘‘A woman without a husband is a failure,’’ said Elizabeth. Elizabeth was content to be a stranger to her husband, and a respectable wife to the society. When she caught her husband cheating on her with the house-help, she did what any respectable married African woman will do. she swept everything under the carpet because she had married out of desperation. This is how to stay married and have a respectable corner in the society.

Weeks turn into years and it was Adanna's turn, the future husband brought beautiful gifts home and Elizabeth persuaded her daughter to get married.  When she came back home with bruises on her face, she pretended not to see because a daughter does not return from her husband home. This is how to stay married and remain a respectable woman in the eyes of society.

When Munachi ran away from home on the day of her traditional marriage without the ceremony. the story took us on a journey to the domestication of Munachi with the re-discovery of self worth  and realization that the only way to stay married is to start with a happy marriage.  

The Famous Trickster of African Culture, Re-introducing Gizo the Spider.

Folktales are stories passed down orally from generation to generation. The authors are usually unknown and the stories talk about everyday life.

 The trickster tales are short imaginative narratives that usually use an anthropomorphic animal that has magical powers and is characterised as a compendium of opposites. Trickster is an ambiguous and anomalous character.

The trickster figure is found all over the world. A good trickster should be mischievous, humorous and cunning and should have the ability to change between animal and human form.

 Gizo is the human acting spider who uses his cunning to overcome the best of bigger and strongest animals including humans. He is the king of tricksters in Hausa folktales. He comes from the northern part of Nigeria and speaks Hausa. Gizo has many stories to his name. He is married to Koki. He is usually a villain to the Hausa people. He is cunning, shrewd, greedy, wise and sometimes foolish.

He is known by many names across the world.

Gizo- Hausa tribe of West Africa.

Kweku or Kwaku Anansi- Ashanti and related Akan peoples of West Africa.

Ture-  Zande People Of Central Africa.

B’anansi-Suriname.

Aunt Nancy- in South Carolina America.

Annancy or Anancy- Jamaica, Grenada, Costa Rica, Coloumbia, Nicaragua.

 Gizo is not known to many children, in the past a famous song had been written about Gizo and his wife Koki.

Some of the folktales written about Gizo include :

The spider pays his debts.

The spider ,the old woman and the wonderful bull.

How the spider ate the hyena- cubs foods.

The spider, the guinea fowl and the francolin.

The greedy spider and the buds.

The spider, the Hyena and the Corn.

How the spider outwitted the Snake.

The Snake and the Dove outwit the Spider.

The SpIder has a feast.

The spider outwitted by the Tortoise

The greedy spider and the birds.

Spider deals with famine.

Botorimi and the Spider.

 Anansi proves he is the oldest.

Anansi owns all stories that are told.

Anansi borrows money.

Anansi plays dead.

How debt came to Ashanti.

The spider usually uses his wit to gain wisdom and to overcome his larger foes. The spider is creative in his ingenuity of thinking outside the box.

 Trickster tales help us to understand human behaviour and they teach us to think on our feet. They show us how to differentiate between the good and bad. 

Open Wound, Hidden Shame. A review of Born on a Tuesday.

Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist writer and satirists. He has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Caine prize for African writing (2013&2015). His writing has been published in Per Contra, Evergreen Review and Chimurenga’s The Chronic. He is a Civitella Ranieri Fellow and lives in Abuja, Nigeria. The book was published by Cassava Republic.

The themes of the book are love, trust, betrayal and religious schism. The religious schism in this book, raised questions but provided no answers, this perhaps is the reason why the author succeeded in writing a book about religion.

The only answer I can offer is that we need to try hard on dialogues and reintegrating different sects in to the society. 

The life of Dantala is an open wound and hidden shame to Northern Nigeria. The book is a bildungsroman as Dantala starts out as an Almajiri and ends up as a student of a Salafi Mallam. Almajiranci is child abuse but it started out as a beautiful tenet of religion, it was coined from the word al muhajiroon which means emigrant.

 The author’s decision to write about religion is unconventional, but it moved the plot forward. The author brought the Dantala to life with irony. The book was written in the first person point of view and Dantala has different goals at each section of the book, in the beginning it was to escape from the police in Bayan layi, in doggon icce it was to see his mother, in Sokoto it was to marry Aisha and at the end it was to save Jibril. It is disheartening because Dantala had no real desire for himself.

The life of Dantala and other former Almajiris like him end up as tools in election violence or as thugs and miscreants. Almajiranci is an open wound in our society and it is time we treat the wound with brotherly love.       

Etisalat in my next book the characters will use your network- please make my book a brand ambassador.

We need book tours in Nigeria, but authors have two jobs and it is hard to survive on writing alone. The cost of publishing, Internet subscriptions, and phone recharge cards, paying rent and feeding is high. Then add it to the unstable fuel price and the picture is dark. Writing is a gift, and people who love to write need to be motivated.

Nigeria needs to be reading books written for Nigeria, by Nigerians. We need all the genres of literature in order to develop our society.

Authors sell ideas to people and open the imagination. We need to build a society of problem solvers, and we need new innovations. We all agree that Nigeria needs structural development, and so does the writing profession. We need structure in publishing, creative writing courses and book sales. Writing is a profession that can bring profit; authors are a good source of advertisement. Authors need to sell the ideas of peace, nation building, innovations and positive mindset.

 We need opportunities to sell our books.One way of selling our books is to have book tours; we have 90 Nigerian universities in Nigeria. An author does not have the resources and time to travel to all the universities but with a partnership with a network provider and literature/art departments of the university and secondary schools. The author can organise book readings on Skype, Google, Facebook and twitter etc.  

This can be organised on weekends and in return the authors can help the university/ Secondary schools by offering courses in creative writing. Literature departments can afford to pay authors to give courses on literary fiction, children’s fiction poetry and drama etc.  The network provider will also gain by advertising their products.

The author of this article uses Etisalat network to call and browse and for research purposes. In the future authors will be able to give book readings across Africa and the world and at the same time create change.

Words Are The Eggs Of Poems. A review of DANCe H.E.R.E by Laura .M. Kaminski.

DANCe H.E.R.E

By Laura .M. Kaminsky

Origami Books, 114 pp.

Words are the eggs of poem is a metaphor for words given birth to words, a line in the poem incubation, a symbol for the collection of  poetry written in six sections-incubation, dance here, red ink, messages, blinders and drawing water.

The poet used her words to capture the fragments of someone’s life, a dear word, and to capture the fragment of someone’s death, a dear one whose words were stifled forever.

The Six sections were written in free verse, the words took form with the cadence of natural speech. Free verse was first use in Italian Opera and in the king James translation of the bible.

The poet’s words lay eggs and formed images that captured my emotions, the words labelled fragile with red ink made me cry for Jos, Maiduguri, our girls and Hashem Shaabani.

Laura M. Kaminski’s collection of poetry is not a song of sorrows, but a song of life, a gift of friendships, and words of lessons.