Writing

Poet, visionary, historian, chronicler of the forgotten, scorned, and oppressed. Eduardo Galeano held court to a packed auditorium at a PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature conversation held at The New School. The event was facilitated by Jessica Hagedorn.

In my travels around the global literary scene, the question of a writerly identity has never seemed more precarious, conflicted, and urgent than with writers from Africa. More often than not, it is the writer—not the reader—who is fixated on the question: who or what is an African writer?

Friday, May 03, 2013, 8:30pm
The New School: Tishman Auditorium 66 West 12th St., New York, NY 10011

Caustically witty and sharp-tongued as ever, Fran Lebowitz and A.M. Homes lit up the stage at The New School's Tishman auditorium last night with a candid conversation that ranged in disparate topics from bravery in writing to changes in New York City and in particular, the West Village, to revenge, playing a judge on TV, to teaching, politics and Hurricane Sandy.

Thursday, May 02, 2013, 6:30pm
The New School: Tishman Auditorium 66 West 12th St., New York, NY 10011

On Thursday night we were offered a fascinating glimpse into the renowned writer, Jamaica Kincaid. Keeping within PEN's theme of bravery, the evening's topics ranged widely from the novel, memory, the event, landscape, marriage, writing to the colonial mindset, but I want to focus on one particular thread that ran throughout and perhaps touches on a number of the topics I have just listed: curiosity.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013, 1:00pm
The Library at The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003

‘An elemental narrative’ is the description we should use for a story that transcends genre. Our understanding of ‘elemental’ relates to what is ‘essential’ or ‘a basic part.’ It means that our elemental narratives always bear the premise that we are writing a ‘basic’ story that touches at the heart of who we are and what we have become. The goal of the writer will be to write a story that is as elemental as a shared humanity, those recognizable qualities that makes us human, and sometimes inhuman.

I will argue for a new Nigerian literary order.

Suppose we call this ‘neo-literariness’, for want of a better word, and because in hyphenation a word acquires two identities. So, neo-literariness is the word to use for a generation of writers and enthusiasts who function despite institutional lapses, and whose artistic engagement thrives of new ways of being, especially web-technology.

I will explain with a few examples.

INTRODUCTION: I have interacted with Dami Ajayi more than any other writer in this series; easily he was the choice for the final conversation. I have lived with Dami, shared books with him, written about him, dreamt with him, fought literary wars with him; together we have co-founded a literary magazine, organized workshops, readings, etc etc. He's kin, as well as colleague. So readers will notice how we easily lapsed into ourselves in the following conversation, referring to subjects and experiences that  is peculiar to our shared moments. Even more when we go back and forth about my new novel.

Ayodele is one of the most consistent Nigerian writers of the last half-decade. She’s the oldest writer in the Gambit series, although I wouldn’t want to ask her if she’s comfortable being grouped with younger colleagues. I figure that question would be answered with a wave of her hand; Ayodele gives the impression that even the most obvious of borders doesn’t exist. Meeting her in person, I was drawn to her infinite knowledge about everyone and everything in the literary world.