Tag Archives: Teju Cole

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Teju Cole and Taiye Selasi are NOT Charlie

Teju Cole

Teju Cole and Taiye Selasi have withdrawn from PEN USA gala at the World Voices Festival, a weeklong event that brings dozens of writers from around the globe to New York City.

The two Africans have a valid reason for withdrawing from this prestigious event; PEN American Center has decided to give its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. That’s that one that was attacked by very pissed off folks last year leading to the “Je Suis Charlie” worldwide social media trend and all that went with it. Gerard Biard, Charlie Hebdo’s editor in chief, and Jean-Baptiste Thoret, a Charlie Hebdo staff member who arrived late for work on Jan 7 and missed the attack by Islamic extremists that killed 12 people, were scheduled to accept the award.

Cole and Selasi are joined by Australian Peter Carey, Sri Lankan-born Canadian Michael Ondaatje, Americans Francine Prose and Rachel Kushner.

Opinion: We here at JamesMurua.com wholeheartedly agree with the two African authors. I really don’t like what that Charlie Hebdo stands for. Seriously.

>> Read more

:: Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo

:: Salman Rushdie slams critics of PEN’s Charlie Hebdo tribute

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Teju Cole makes PEN USA Literary Awards 2015 longlist

Teju Cole

PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The US version of PEN announced the longlists for the 2015 PEN Literary Awards, spanning fiction, nonfiction, biography, essays, translation, and more on 12th March.

The finalists will be announced on April 15 at the PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on June 8 at The New School in New York City.

The longlists have a name of interest to the followers of African literature; Teju Cole. Cole who was born in Nigeria but now share his time between the USA and Nigeria is the running for the PEN Open Book Award. This award is for an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2014 and will be judged by R. Erica Doyle, W. Ralph Eubanks, and Chinelo Okparanta. This nomination is for his Random House book Every Day Is for the Thief.

You can read the whole list of nominations here.

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Teju Cole, Helon Habila, and Ivan Vladislavić get paid! #WindamCampellPrize2015

Helon Habila

We have a winner or rather a list of winners for the Winham Campbell Prize 2015. And just like last year when Aminatta Forna was feted, there is an African in the list. In fact this year there are three; Teju Cole, Helon Habila, and Ivan Vladislavić all who are writers of fiction. The first two are Nigerian and the latter is the South African.

The prizes were announced by Peter Salovey, the 23rd president of Yale University, at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library yesterday. They will be receiving their prizes at a ceremony and literary festival at Yale from 28 September to 1 October, 2015.

Teju Cole

Teju Cole is well known here in Kenya with his stints at both the Storymoja Festival in 2013 and 2014. He also has two books to his name Open City (My review) and Every Day is for the thief.

Habila hasn’t come to Storymoja yet but its only a matter of time right. His books include Waiting for an Angel: A Novel (2004), Penguin Books, New Writing 14, (2006) Granta Books. (co-edited with Lavinia Greenlaw), Measuring Time: A Novel (2007), W. W. Norton, Dreams, Miracles, and Jazz: An Anthology of New Africa Fiction (2007) and Pan Macmillan (co-edited with Kadija George) Oil on Water: A Novel (2010), Hamish Hamilton. He is also guy behind Parresia Publishers which has an imprint that introduced a crime fiction contest that gave us Blessing Musariri.

Ivan Vladislavić

Ivan Vladislavić is a South African short story writer and novelist of Croatian origin. You can find out more about him here.

So how much will they be going home with at the festival? The recipients, chosen for fiction, nonfiction, and drama, each receive $150,000 unrestricted grants. You can read more about the process used to select them here.

Congratulations y’all.

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Mengestu Dinaw and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor on Folio Prize long list

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

The Folio Prize is the first major English language book prize open to writers from around the world published in the UK.
The prize is shaped by The Folio Prize Academy, an international group of people, mainly writers and critics, immersed in the world of books and play a decisive role in selecting titles to be considered for the shortlist, and each year the judges will be drawn from its number. This academy includes some familiar names like Helon Habila, Teju Cole, Aminatta Forna, Petina Gappah, Noviolet Bulawayo and Helen Oyeyemi.
The longlist for the Folio Prize 2015 has just been announced by the academy and there are a couple of novels on it that readers of this blog will be familiar with; Mengestu Dinaw and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. They are in the running for their books All Our Names and Dust respectfully.
The two are in the running for the sixty five year old prize with the short list of eight titles being announced on 9 February 2015. This will be followed by the winner of The Folio Prize being announced on Monday 23 March at a ceremony at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in central London. That’s London, UK not London, Eastlands. Apart from champagne and acclaim they will also be presented with a cheque for £40,000.

Update: South African author Damon Galgut is also on the list for his novel Arctic Summer.

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Meet African writers on the Palm Print’s The Living Room

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is very cool on her video

Getting to read Africans is getting easier and easier with spaces like Amazon and more publishers than ever getting into the fiction space in the recent past. Whilst it is relatively easy to pick up the book and read the story from the author the author is usually unseen like in other art forms like music and film. Opportunities for people who love the written word to see their prose heros aren’t that many not just in African literature but generally. Apart from a few shows dedicated to featuring writers like KTN did a few months ago and discontinued the prose gods of this day and age have to compete with the rest of the arts for the space to promote their product.

This is why I am loving a YouTube channel that I have just discovered called The Palm Print where you get to meet African writers like Teju Cole, Chinelo Okparanta and Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. Almost in the flesh. As in you see them as real human beings that talk and cough and rub their noses nervously and everything. They give their opinions about their work and other topics of interest. In one video Teju Cole, is at a book club where people who have read his Open City book get to ask him questions about it. In another Nana Ekua talks about rediscovering Ghana the country she calls home and her book Powder Necklace as well as being in the Africa39 list. In yet another one with Kelechi Okere (a doppelganger for Nganga Mbugua) hosts Chinelo Okparanta on her book Happiness Like Water and the voiceless women. All very cool.

The website of the Palm Print project describes itself as a platform for exploring the rich and myriad cultures of Africa through our story as told in literature, documentaries, photography and other art forms. Starting with literature (can I get an amen?!) they are trying to build a community of writers, both on and offline, working together to share and create the stories that define us as a continent. So I recommend that you go into The Living Room series where invited guests exchange thoughts and views on African literature. You might just see your favourite writer or meet a new one.

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Top Writers in New African 100 most influential list.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

The New African magazine has published its highly regarded 100 Hundred Most Influential Africans 2014 and it has some of what the team who run the publication considers the Africans to watch in 2014. The list is segmented into different categories like politics, media, arts and culture, business and more. A few of the writers that we have been covering on this blog have made the list this year and they and how they have been described in the magazine are;

  1. Wole Soyinka – Nigeria’s national conscience.
  2. Teju Cole – The Teju Cole of Teju Cole.
  3. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o – The literary giant.
  4. Tolu Ogunlesi – Award winning journalist, comedy writer and poet.
  5. Binyavanga Wainaina – The Imagination Catalyst.
  6. Chimamanda Adichie – The happy feminist.
  7. Noviolet Bulawayo – The young author who won’t stop winning awards.
  8. Fatou Diome – The adventurer away from home.
  9. Yvonne Adhiambo Owour – The novelist sprinkled with stardust.

Wole Soyinka and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o are no surprise as they are currently the elder statesmen of the African writing game and failing to see their names on such a list would leave it with serious questions around it.

Then there are the folks who have taken over the game in a huge way. Chimamanda Adichie is the most talked about African writer right now and with good reason; awards, movies from one of her books, referenced by Beyonce Knowles the American singer type person in her music. Also in that caliber is Binyavanga Wainaina who has a memoir and awards and an ability to bring vociferous discussions whenever he brings about a new viewpoint.

Teju Cole is a brilliant writer; one of the best I have read in the last five years and he has many other skills. Also in there is Noviolet Bulawayo who has been winning like crazy in the last few years.

Tolu Ogunlesi and Fatou Diome have not been read by this blogger so that give me homework to find out more about their work.

I am most chuffed about Yvonne Adhiambo Oduor being on this list. The framers of the list described her as “the novelist sprinkled with stardust” as this I believe she is one the best writers to have come out of Kenya probably in a generation. And sadly I have a feeling that it might be a while before we see another of her books.

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The Storymoja Festival 2014 is here!

See you there.

It took a while but after many moons of preparation and other such things the Storymoja Festival 2014 is upon us. The National Museum of Kenya is starting today the epicenter of all events literature in Nairobi.

The events will be many and we shall keep you abreast of as much as I can but this is not a task for one man. To get a true fell of the festival you want to follow the official social media channels of events at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You may also follow some of the authors at the events including Jeff Koinange, Prajwal Parajuly, Teju Cole, Ladan Osman , and the rest of the gang who are in this years festival line up. Brilliant one if I say so myself. They include  Wole Soyinka, Teju Cole, Kwame Dawes,, Dizreali, Dr. Kinyanjui Nganga, Biko Zulu, Sitawa Namwalie, Oyunga Pala, Prajwal Parajuly (see: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-188788/authors-corner-i-climbed-mt-everest-dalai-lama-prajwal-parajuly)  and more!

As for the program of events then you want to check out both the Master class program and the official program. There are many events that you can access with the festival payment. However there are a few that are called “premium events” which go a long way to raising money for books for schools. They are;

  • Stories From The Mall – a theatrical tribute to the Westgate Terror Victims. Ksh 1000/.
  • Githaa: Validating Dreams theatre show. Ksh 1000/.
  • Afreeka! A Storymoja Stir-up. Ksh 300/. Free with festival ticket bought before 10t Sept.
  • Festival Launch Gala to benefit Start-a-Library Ksh 6000/ Premium Festival ticket or 7500/ Keys to Fest ticket.
  • Silence is a Woman theatre show. Ksh 1000/.
  • Jaza Matatu na Vitabu music concert. Ksh 1000/ Only 800/ if bought before 10th Sept.

Let’s see you at the national museum of Kenya in Nairobi over the last few days. It’s going to be… wait for it… literary!

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Excerpt for new old Teju Cole book Everyday is for the Thief

So Teju Cole came to Nairobi in a blaze of glory last year in the Storymoja Hay Festival. He came to these shores on the back of the Faber & Faber published Open City. The book is about a psychotic rapist Nigerian/German walking around New York and giving his strange view of the world.

The writer’s latest title Every day is for the thief is on the way. It was initially published by Cassava Republic in 2007 and will be coming back as an enhanced version when it comes out later in the year. In this book, a young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. It is described as a “series of cinematic portraits of everyday life in Lagos, Teju Cole provides a fresh approach to the returnee experience.”

You can read an excerpt of the book at the Chimurenga Chronic where you get such gems as;

“He was 11 years old. He snatched a bag from inside the market, six weeks ago. I know the rest, even before I’m told: I’ve seen it before. At least, I’ve seen it in its constituent parts, if never all at once. I watched in fragments and was unimpressed, as children are, by whatever seems to them to be normal. I was still a child when I learned to stitch the various vignettes into a single story. The desperate grab, the cries of thief – an ordinary cry anywhere else, but in a Lagos market, it thins the blood out with fear – the cry taken up by those who never saw the original grab, but who nevertheless believe in its motivating power. It was like the day I was at the garri stall with my mother, when I could have been no more than seven. Cries of thief, thief. Then the chase that arises organically and with frightening swiftness out of the placid texture of the market, a furious wave of men that organises itself into a single living thing. And then the capture of the felon – there is nowhere to run – his denials and, when those inevitably fail, his pleas. He doesn’t get far into the pleas before he is pushed – all this I’ve seen, more than once – kicked, beaten with what never looks like less than personal aggravation. The violence is intimate, interspersed with curses. The stolen purse has, by now, made its way back into the hands of madam, and she has cleared out of the scene. If nothing was stolen, nothing is returned, but the event must run its course.”

To read the rest of the excellent excerpt you need to click here.

As I read this excerpt all I could think was; “Please God let this one have a plot.”

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Teju Cole’s Open City; A review

Book: Open City

Writer: Teju Cole

Nationality: Nigeria/USA

Number of pages: 259

Publisher: Faber and Faber.

Open City is the highly praised debut novel of Nigerian/US writer Teju Cole who was the main speaker at Storymoja Hay Festival in 2013. The novel is about Julius, a psychiatrist who was born to a Nigerian father and German mother in Nigeria. Julius goes through school in Naija then goes on to become a psychiatrist in New York, USA. The book tells the stories of the mans wandering through the streets of the Big Apple and his musings as he goes around his the city after his work day.

What did I like about the novel?

The only subjects that I really did well in high school were in English and History. My history part of this book is something that appealed to my high school passing tendencies. There is quite a bit to mull over with the story of New York and its origins. One learns of the history of city with its former colonial power Holland (who knew?!) and on to the English. One learns about classical music and some specific composers and photographers and more.

Also in the learning mode you learn quite a bit about Belgium and many of its diverse population and their lives.

Away from the extended history lesson I enjoyed the concept of an African in New York who isn’t just about your typical African-In-America stereotype. This is a guy who is a qualified sought out medic in one of the biggest cities in the world with a love of classical music and art and stuff. Very nice.

Also that some New Yorkers have to suffer the ignominy of bed bugs. Sweet!

What I loved about the novel?

The prose. Damn this Teju Cole dude can write and it appealed the English in me. I went through the pages of the book just enjoying my reading. It was like I was eating 259 pages of really good cheese cake. It was hella good. What’s not to like about such quotes;

“To be alive, it seemed to me, as I stood there in all kinds of sorrow, was to be both original and reflection, and to be dead was to be split off, to be reflection alone.”

“I couldn’t remember what life was like before I started walking.”
“Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.”

You can read more quotes from the book from Good Reads readers here.

What didn’t I like about the novel?

The protagonist is a bit psychotic no? He is a well read, pretty well travelled guy whose job is to help people with their emotional needs. But there is no evidence of his own emotional stability. This is a guy who is being mugged on the street and instead of worrying about his safety he goes into soliloquies about the human condition. This is a guy accused of raping a woman years ago and he starts mulling on a Roman hero from the 6th century and Nietzsche. Who does this seriously? This guy is a psycho and I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time with the likes of him if he was in my space. This is clear with the other characters in the book as very few people seem to spend time with him except the nearly dead professor. Not even his ex-girlfriend Nadege who has broken up with him even though he is still hung up on her.

What did I hate about the novel?

I am not a fan of books without plots. I was busy eating the good cheese cake prose when it dawned upon me that I was at page 200 and this story didn’t even look likely to start anytime soon. When I started feeling worried that this book was ending with holes all over and no plot the writer threw in a plot twists; a rape accusation. The worst part for me was that as I read this book I was thinking that this book was about a psycho serial killer dude and this is all I get? An alleged rapist who doesn’t even respond? The hell? Instead of satisfying my need for plot this just irritates the hell out of me. What was the point of the whole book then? While we are at it, we never get to meet the mother he is estranged from or why this is so. He never gets to see his grandmother even though he goes to spend a whole month in her country of Belgium.

Do I recommend this book?

For the prose yes. For rest of it, save your money.

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The Storymoja Hay Festival cancelled… well be back better.

Toto Tale’s Isla Menzies with Atinuke (The Number 1 Car spotter)

I am not a huge fan of terrorists. Its just not my scene. I report on the social aspect of the human story. Birthday parties. Weddings. Literature. National Days of countries in Kenya, launches of products. You will never see me at the front line of a major news story unless you see me covering a wedding of a prominent personality that doesn’t want to be in they paper. Nothing death defying really. You won’t see me when there is a major fire or shoot our or disaster area. Never ever.

This past weekend was going to be following in my tradition of reporting for the social pages of the newspaper I work for The Star. The list of events was huge. My focus for the weekend however was the Storymoja Hay Festival 2013. It was going to bigger and better.

The truth is that I am really happy with what the team at Storymoja have been able to do in th last few years. Its no mean feat. The Nairobi International Book Fair run by the Kenya Publishers Association has been around for 16 years and has never been able to give us the same buzz as the Storymoja one. Our friends at Kwani? Started with their Literature festivals as well but they just don’t seem to excite people as they did a decade ago. Meanwhile the Storymoja Hay festival seems to only getting strong and strong as the years go by.

This year started officially on Thursday evening with the annual Party with Stars. This is an event which festival director Dr Paula Kahumbu and her hands off our elephants team were at the forefront. This made me feel like I was in any major capital in the world as we were treated “vacuous models” speeches from actress Bai Ling and model Christie Brinkley . Bai Ling informed us that she had adopted three new babies – elephant babies. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry in shock. Brinkley on her part seeing as she had an audience of writers and fans of writers went on to give us story ideas that would work for in Hollywood. Story 1. A sort of Elephant model for Finding Nemo. Story 2. A sort of Harrison Ford investigating the trail that the elephants ivory industry (personally I would prefer Shaft doing that but its just me). It’s always a pleasure for writers to be given ideas that must surely work in real life for them who are not slaving behind keyboards.

It wasn’t all fun and games though. The evening was quite good with Storymoja supremo (always wanted to use this in a sentence… self high five) Muthoni Garland running us through the evening with little fun anecdotes and introducing people like British high commissioner Dr Christian Turner with short and fluffy remarks (short as in short not short as in Kenyan politico short) about the festival. Also on the program was a taste of Sitawa Namwalie’s newest work Silence is a woman with a rendition by Mumbi Kaigwa. And Dr Auma Obama doing a Q&A with Muthoni leaving me to wonder if perhaps writers too want to become the next David Frost now that he has left us.

It was an outstanding evening and the Friday was just as good with over 3,000 kids showing up at the festival to enjoy the events. Alongside the many kid friendly events there were events for writers who want to better their craft on different topics from well known people. They included Nigerian/US writer Teju Cole this years poster boy as well as Ghanaian Nii Ayikwei Parkes, South African Zukiswa Wanner, Kenyan Daniel Muli (from Just-a-band)and many more.

Mumbi Kaigwa performs Silence is a woman.

The evening of the Friday saw the writers party at  Muthoni’s House a secret location. This party saw me spend time with some of the more well known names in the literature business. Old pals and new were made. Billy Kahora (Kwani), Daniel Waweru (Kenya Imagine), Binyavanga Wainaina (One Day I will write about this place), Wally Mongane Serote (Revolutions), Teju Cole (Open City) with his awesome significant other Karen, Dr Auma Obama (Sometimes Life Happens), Atinuke (Number 1 Car spotter), … This list is not exhaustive. I eventually got home to my bed at around 3am when the gracious hosts Wallace and Muthoni Garland told us to leave.

The Saturday saw me at the Louise Leakey Auditorium at the National Museum for Dr Mukesh Kapila‘s as he gave this year’s Wangari Maathai Memorial lecture dubbed Against A Tide of Evil. He seemed to the best man to give such a lecture as he was working for the UN at some of the worst hot spots; Rwanda during the 1993 genocide, Sudan during the Darfur massacres, the Tsunami in 2005. His lecture was well received although to be honest I was a bit the worse for wear after only a few hours sleep.

As the lecture ended a lady stood up and told the audience to avoid the Westgate mall as there seemed to be a robbery in progress. I was taken aback as if thieves had decided to steal from the mall I wasn’t to be bothered as I was not an interested party.

The next session was the Teju Cole discussing with John Sibi-Okumu one about his experience. Cole is a brilliant speaker (He said Nairobi is better that Lagos so you can understand my bias.) My twitter feed was filling up with this Westgate thing and eventually I had to start concentrating on what I was hearing from a few kilometres away.

As I followed my feed I suddenly remembered that lecture that Dr Kapila gave earlier in the day. People can be evil dude!

The festival was to be cancelled when the gravity of the situation came to be known.

I am not happy with those Al Shabaab fellows and killing some of our best sons and daughters but we must not allow them to try and make us change our lives too drastically.

I’ll be back next year. And Wole Soyinka promises to be here as well. I’ll hope to see you; It’s going to be legendary. Legendarier even.

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