LITERATORS' CORNER

Helon Habila's Measuring Time : Africa's History as Narrative                --Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy A set of twin brothers; in a bid to avenge years of neglect by their father; choose to seek fame. The older but frail and sickly one (Mamo) chooses the pen while the younger agile and defiant one (Lamamo) chooses the gun. Through their experiences and that of those they come in contact with, we see the history of Africa unfold before our very eyes. This is how I wish to remember the beautiful and scintillating tragic story told by Helon Habila in Measuring Time . But there is more... Albeit Mamo's underlying health condition denies him the opportunity of seeking a career in the army, he becomes an history teacher and was later employed as the village's palace secretary and historian with a commission to craft the history of the village ruler (the Mai) and that of his ancestors. But he soon finds out he is but a puppet in the hands of scheming...

Finding Odysseus's Palace: Jane Cochrane's Odysseus' Island                 --Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy Once upon a time, a young student of literature sat in class listening to his formalist professor trying to blur the line between literature and human existence or reality. The professor said that whatever you have in a narrative has no connection with the outer world of that book. But this young student had trained himself to see art as 'a mirror of society' and the idea that it should be considered an entity on its own outside the society, author, or epoch that fashioned that art failed to sit well with him. That was probably his first contact with a pure formalist and he felt he just had to say something. This young student got up and told the professor that he could not be right. Understanding literature often demands understanding the circumstances surrounding such literature and that literature is as much life as life is literature. He re...