LITERATORS' CORNER

At a time when the Somali society held tenaciously to beliefs that a good woman's place was in her home and that she had no business engaging in public life or seeking education; as either path would only soil the honour of such a woman's family; 'crazy' Edna was born into the prestigious household of Doctor Adan Ismail and she was determined to change the narrative; not only for herself, but for every Somali female child. The story in her memoir, A Woman of First , is a testament to this very fact.  From a very young age, Edna was quite conscious of the fact that she was different from other girls, for example, she sought the company of boys, participated in their games, attended classes with them, and joined her father on his daily rounds as the first Somali medical doctor. Her father's love for his profession, devotion to treating the sick among his people, and the awful experience of losing two siblings at infancy would inspire Edna's life-long dreams: to pu...

If there were one review I would rather not write, it would be this one. I remember that I once found it amusing hearing a professor of mine lamenting his inability to complete Buchi Emecheta's Joys of Motherhood due to the outburst of emotions welled up by the events in the story. Well, it appears nemesis has come for me in form of Nuruddin Farah's Maps ; the fictional novel is such a powerful and grief-stricken one that leaves one feeling sad every time it is recalled. More than anything, it demonstrates the power of words on paper by showing how a writer can manipulate our emotions through words and force us to empathise with their characters. If this were all there was to the novel, it would still be a powerful one, but there is more. Nuruddin Farah's Maps tells the tale of Misra, an Ethiopian-Amhara divorcee, who comes to live among the Somalis before the Ethio-Somali war of 1977-78. Misra had been abducted as a young girl by a Somali warrior following a tribal raid ...

Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is humorous tale which revolves around a paterfamilias; Baba Segi; and his four wives—Iya Segi, Iya Femi, Iya Tope, and Bolanle. It so happens that while illiterate Baba Segi goes around bragging about his conquests as an accomplished polygamist (his fourth and latest being a university graduate to boot) and how he dominates his household, it is revealed that our proud man is just a soldier without ammunition, or a paper tiger. Worried about his fourth wife's infertility, Baba Segi comes to discover that he is actually the one afflicted with sterility and that his purported children from his first three wives were actually fathered by other men. We also come to see that his idea of control over his household is a figment of his imagination as his home is actually run by his first wife, Iya Segi. The story is told using the voice of the characters alongside that of the narrator. By allowing the characters tell their own sides...

                                                                                                            - - Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy An ill child left in a shrine to be healed by the shrine god (while the father goes in search of herbs) is found by a White Christian priest who believes the child was kept there as a sacrifice to the idol, especially as it was left there unattended. The priest supposedly rescues this child and takes him to Rome where he grows up to become a priest. The young priest hears extraterrestrial voices ordering him to seek out his roots and interprets this as God asking him to return and show the 'light' to his father and people. Me...

     A Short Story by Mohamed Mohamoud Ahmed Once upon a time, there was a boy whose name was Ghuled. He was living with his parents. His parents were very interested in empowering their boy educationally to become the first among others. Ghuled was a student who refused the advice of his parents. He started to follow bad students that he should not even be engaged with and they became close friends. ‘Wasting time is not good,’ his father advised him. ‘But Ahmed replied that time was not important. Despite this, Ghuled's parents promised to send him outside the country for his university education after he must have finished his secondary education. Unfortunately, he did not accept the idea of his parents and turned a deaf ear to their words. He started to smoke cigarettes and chew khat all day till he exhausted his time without anything being achieved. And this was how Ghuled burned his days which became months and then years without any achievement. Many y...

--Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy It has been a while since I have chomped on a novel and felt this satiated. It is perhaps even more surprising that it is a novel in series; and I must confess that I detest waiting or looking for the next series of a story or film to know how a story finally ends (I'm for giv' me da 'hole mother fricking thin' or giv' me nothin' at all--pay no attention to my poor attempt at imitating the teenage characters in this novel, haha!). However, here is one story I need to know how it ends like my life depends on it! Two adventurous male teenagers decide to ransack a strange looking solitary house in the desert of Las Vegas and luckily find two gemstones following an attack by a ferocious dog. It turns out that these stones are not just ordinary stones and imbue their handlers with extraterrestrial powers like an ability to control plants and animals, breathe inside water, feel extreme strength and bolster self-confidence. But there is a h...

                                      -- Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy Two major functions of the family as the basic unit of society are socialising and integrating its members into the larger society. Where it fails to do so, its members are forced to seek love, attention, and care elsewhere. Faced by the physical absence of parents or the lack of parental attention and care in their homes, many young Americans turn to the streets to adopt new families and friends that they pledge absolute allegiance to. Hence, many young children are easily drawn into the world of juvenile delinquency with peer pressure as an incentive for their violent and antisocial acts. The adult world is such a distant place from the world of adolescents cum teenagers, yet adults are quick to assume that they know all about youngsters (we fool ourselves with the 'been there, done that, and seen it all' mentality). We fail...