SLS Literary Contest

I challenge all the good writers I know to enter into the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest, see a message from the organizers below:

Summer Literary Seminars is announcing its annual unified (Montreal, Lithuania and Kenya) literary contest, held this year in affiliation with Fence Magazine. We are thrilled this year to have Mary Gaitskill judging the fiction, and Mary Jo Bang judging the poetry.

Contest winners in the categories of fiction and poetry will have their work published in Fence, as well as the participating literary journals in Canada, Lithuania and Kenya. Additionally, they will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS-2010 programs – in Montreal, Quebec (June 13 - 27); Vilnius, Lithuania (August 1 - 14); or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya (December).

To summarize, this contest has two really good prices,
1. publication in Fence magazine and
2. a sponsored stay at a writing workshop to develop one's skills!

The catch? It costs 15 USD to enter the contest and the deadline is just around the corner (February 28, 2010).

Read more about the Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest here.

Pic: Write something someone else can read!

Ghana Guide on the Web

The Bradt Travel Guide to Ghana (most recent edition is 2007) by Philip Briggs is now available on the web with Google books! See link here.

This guide is positively personable, amazingly accurate and dot on detailed (including great maps of places before Google Maps even existed!). I recommend it to anyone coming this way!

In the pic: Me and my husband being tourists in our country, I think around xmas 2007.

Chimamanda Adichie: The Problem of A Single Story

A storyteller has as a job to tell stories that are engaging and important. Chimamanda Adichie's account of how single stories have inflicted on her life - and on the African countries we love, is both engaging and important. The single (negative) image of "Africa" that I have been trying to complement in 200+ blog posts here on Rain In Africa, she covers in under 20 minutes.

And luckily, it has been recorded as a TED speech that I can recommend to all of you. For you who are temporarily busy, her powerful conclusion can suffice for now - but when you have time, do listen to her in full.

When we reject the single story, we regain paradise.

Chimamanda Adichie most known works are: Half Of A Yellow Sun (I can't believe I haven't blogged about this book - I adored it) and Purple Hibiscus.

Don't Confuse Urban Africa, The Blog with...

...The web store Urban Africa

...The book Urban Africa by Simone and Abouhani (2005)

...The Flickr album Urban Africa which has following overlapping raison d'etre with this blog:

Africa has untold vital urban spaces and a rich legacy of a 2.000 years long history of urbanization. However, in the vast majority of flickr groups related to Africa, nature and wildlife photography are predominant. Africa appears as a rural and ‘exotic’ scenery where humans, animals and landscapes build a more ore less harmonious unity.

Pic of a Bead and Wire Ndebele Radio that can be purchased on the Urban Africa store website.

African Literature in the Making: Harmattan Rain

Yesterday, I found some information on facebook about a book by a Ghanaian writer, Ayesha Harruna Attah that came out a few months ago. Her book is called Harmattan Rain, an interesting choice of title that suggests conflicts, since harmattan is the dry season which normally no not include any rains. You can read an exerpt at the Publish Your Story blog (that amongst others feature Ghanablogging's own Maameous among their friends) here.

I take a great interest in Ghanaian and West African literature, simply because I want to learn about life in Ghana - and what better way to learn than from books?

About the book from the author herself:

A few years before Ghana's independence, Lizzie-Achiaa's lover disappears. Intent on finding him, she runs away from home. Akua Afriyie, Lizzie-Achiaa's first daughter, strikes out on her own as a single parent in a country rocked by successive coups. Her daughter Sugri grows up overprotected. She leaves home for university in New York, where she learns that sometimes one can have too much freedom. Eventually, the secrets parents keep from their children catch up with them.

What was especially fascinating about this book, if I got it crrectly, was that it was concieved at an African literature center, where a few talanted students are invited each year for a nine month (!) sejour that - if all works out - ends with a book. The center is called Per Ankh as situated in Dakar, Senegal.

There is so much talent in Africa that go unharvested. I think initiatives like Per Ankh could be one way of changing that. What do you think?

Cover pic borrowed from the author.

Book of the Month: Reading the Ceiling

I came across an interesting-looking book in the Silverbird Bookstore in the Accra mall last week and now that I have finished it, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

The book "Reading the Celiling" is written by the Gambian author Dayo Foster. It is Foster's first novel, and it is an excellent first attempt, producing a lovely main character in reasoning young woman Ayodele and other believable characters like her strict mother, warm Auntie K, annoying Moira, desirable Yuan and kind priest Foday Sillah.

Her description of everyday life in West Africa is also spot on with descriptions of beach outings complete with ice-chests and bbq, a daunty rented two-room house, an altruistic choice of career in Mali and the profitable Mercedes business in the Gambia.

But it is not an "African novel" per se, it is a successful literary examination of choices we ahvein life which made me revisit some of the choices I have made thinking about their possible alternatives.

I enjoy books which take you to another world in which you look around and find the familiar faces and locations as described in the book. Crafting that kind of "real" world in a novel is likely very difficult since just a choice of a few words, saying too much or too little can distort the picture in my head.

The first few pages about Ayodele's choice that will come to determine her life can be read here, in a website constructed for the book. The site also has more information about the young author and some extras for us who have read her book already. I say, join the club!

Kokrobite Beach Vacation

There's a beach just west of Accra called Kokrobite that seems so far from my everyday life of metro-boulot-dodo, but in geographical terms is not. This is where I spent this past weekend.

Kokrobite(some native English-speakers spell it Kokrobitey to underline the correct pronunciation, including the "e") is situated one hour from Tema, 30 minutes from Accra on a good day with little traffic around Mallam junction leading out west from Accra. This backpackers hide-out is complete with cheap accommodation (can wholly recommend Bah'doosh where I stayed this time), Rastafarians, palm trees, cold beer and a beautiful and crowded beach with a glittering and wavy ocean.

Everytime I go, I bring only a pair of flip-flops, a piece of African print that can make a dress or a wrap or a towel or a headgear, a flowy white cotton top to avoid sunburn and my colorful patchwork trousers (bought in Kokrobite last year)- all of which goes with a bikini and some beads around the wrists.

My husband and I also take a long the books we never get to read. In the mornings we have breakfast in the shade reading together, something that is terribly nerdy, I know, but just screams vacation to me. Swedish celebrity blogger Alexandra Pascalidou has made beach life her everyday life in Thailand for a couple of months. It should be possible to do the same in Ghana.

Some people might have ulterior and somewhat more "smokey" reasons to come to Kokrobite, but as for me I just find it relaxing without any additives. It is like I took a plane to vacation land. But I didn't. Did I say this place is an hour away from home?

Pic: This is how happy I feel on the beach.

Behind the Obama-Mania

I recommend to anyone living in this time and age to pick up a copy of Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope".

Reading this book is like opening the back door to the Obama inauguration frenzy, including colorful pop-art posters, music galas and celebrity worship, and coming out on the other side of the stage and see that the sky is really blue.

Yes, his election really signifies change due to who he is, but there is more.

It becomes clear that this man is a calm, reflecting but determined do-gooder (funny fact: according to wikipedia Michelle and Barack's first date was to see the movie "Do The Right Thing") who has a dream of letting complexity back into politics. The book is about many other things (chapters are called Values, Our constitution, Race, etc.), but to me the message of complex decision-making resonates. Not every issue can be answered with "Aye" or "Nay", there are trade offs in policy-making and most issues need a bit of explanation before we can take a stand. He also comes down on the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, itself a simplification, in the American political system, but adds that the media thrives off of it:

Your quote doesn't run if you say, "I see the other guy's point of view" or "The issue is really complicated".

I can't help but think that the current economic crises might be just what Obama needs to create a less partisan, less simplistic and more constructive political arena. What we can do, wherever we are in the world, is to accept his challenge of complexity and ourselves get more involved in politics, and maybe also give less meaning to abbreviated news clippings.

The book also has a couple of funny incidents from the (senate) campaign trail, like the one about the guy from Obama's opponent's office who followed him everywhere with a hand-held film camera. After he refused to give Obama even the smallest personal space, Obama introduced him to the press during a briefing. Later he got a apology from the opponent, who by then had been hurt by the story of the persistent and rude filmer.

The New York Times called Obama "level-headed" in their review of The Audacity of Hope. To me, that is a excellent attribute for a world leader to possess.

In Ghana, I am going to view the inaguration ceremony at the Du Bois Center in Labone, Accra and in the evening I have been invited to a celebration arranged by the Africa-American Association of Ghana (AAAG) at Sweeties Night Club in Airport Hills.