She Read the "Influence of A King" within 24 hours

She Read  the "Influence of A King" within 24 hours 

I gave a copy of captivating and riveting historical fiction, "Influence of A King" by Titi Horsfall to Precious Samuel, a young lady who is a student of the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. And she couldn't stop reading it until the last page 319 within 24 hours.

"Oh! My God! This is unlike other Nigerian novels!" She exclaimed with excitement.

I was impressed by her appreciation of the lucid prose of the historical romance of Chad and Kanyam.

We agreed that the title was too subtle for such an enthralling love 💕 story of two captivating characters.

"My Faith and My Love," would have been more attractive to people to be anxious and curious to read the novel.

"Chad and Kanyam should have been a good title too," she said.

"She should consider the film adaptation," I said.

"Influence of A King" would have been an international bestseller if it was reviewed by The New York Times.

"I will like to review such exciting novels," she said.

About the novel:

The novel explores themes of faith, fate, and the power of choices set against the backdrop of global events like the Great Depression and World War II. It tells a love story that transcends cultural and social barriers, featuring characters Chad, an Englishman, and Kanyam, an African girl.

Key aspects of the novel:

Global Scope:

The story unfolds across England, America, and Nigeria, highlighting diverse perspectives and experiences.

Interracial Harmony and Religious Identity:

The novel explores the complexities of relationships between people from different backgrounds and religious beliefs.

Influence of Historical Events:

The narrative is intertwined with significant historical events.

#books
#fiction
#lovelife
#marriage
#Royalty
#kingofengland
#religion
#faith
#christianity
#romance
#england
#america
#nigeria
#WorldWarII
#victory

You Can Sell 10, 000 Copies of A Book Monthly on the Street in Nigeria

#Nigeria #publishing #news #love #print #marketing #advertising #branding #language #books #mobile #hardware #items #brands #products #sales #amazon

I sold out copies of "The Language of True Love" on two streets in Nigeria like a travelling salesman.
I can teach how Market Based Distribution (MBD) can be used to sell books or any mobile hardware  on the street and in a market and 100, 000 copies can be sold by one salesperson in 10 months.

Quote from *The Language of True Love":
"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."
~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-language-of-true-love-michael-chima/1113009241

See The Big Picture: From Script To Screen

You have to see it as you write it.

I have written for the stage, radio, television and cinema.
I was the youngest professional scriptwriter for the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) from when I was 18 years old and I was well paid for three years before I went on to be commissioned as a public health illustrator and translator for a family planning project by the JHU/PCS of the @johnshopkinsu through the, USAID @usaid when I was 21.

I see everyone and everything even before I write a script for a stage play, teleplay or a movie. I have co-written and written screenplays which have not been produced, because I want them to be produced by the best filmmakers. 

The "Naked Beauty" screenplay co-written with the multiple award winning veteran #Nollywood filmmaker and film studies scholar, Dr. Chika Christian Onu is a masterpiece and I published it as a book since 2006. Just in case you don't know who is Dr. Chika Onu. He is the director of the sequel to "Living in Bondage"  of Chris Obi Rapu of 1992. He directed "Living in Bondage" 2 in 1993; "Glamour Girls" in 1994; " Karishika"" in 1996 and over 100 other movies.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2133794/
He said:
"The road to the phenomenon called Nollywood has been exciting and awesome."
www.africanstudies.northwestern.edu › ...PDF
Hostile Takeover Corporate Interventions in Nollywood.pdf
by LR Denzer · Related articles
1994. Dir. Chika Onukwafor (“Christian Onu”).

He is still active and currently writing a book on Nollywood.

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series
247 Nigeria (@247nigeria) / Twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/247nigeria
https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.

“An incredibly readable and rich tapestry of Nigerian and American life, and the ways a handful of vivid characters—so vivid they feel like family—try to live in both worlds simultaneously. As she did so masterfully with Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie paints on a grand canvas, boldly and confidently, equally adept at conveying the complicated political backdrop of Lagos as she is in bringing us into the day-to-day lives of her many new Americans—a single mom, a student, a hairdresser. This is a very funny, very warm and moving intergenerational epic that confirms Adichie’s virtuosity, boundless empathy and searing social acuity.”
< b> —Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King.

“Adichie’s great gift is that she has always brought us into the territory of the previously unexplored. She writes about that which others have kept silent. Americanah is no exception. This is not just a story that unfolds across three different continents, it is also a keenly observed examination of race, identity and belonging in the global landscapes of Africans and Americans. If Joyce had silence, exile and cunning for his defense, Adichie has flair, loss and longing. And Adichie is brave enough to allow the story to unfold with a distinct straightforward simplicity that never loses its edgy intellect.”

—Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.











Tweet

Happy 82 Birthday Chinua Achebe

Prof. Chinua Achebe (born 16 November 1930 as Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe) is the famous author of one of the greatest novels of all time, the classic Things Fall Apart (1958) and other books and the second most celebrated Nigerian writer after the Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka.

We wish you a beautiful happy 82nd Birthday and many wonderful returns of the day as we join all your well wishers all over the world to celebrate the awesome day our Almighty Father JEHOVAH brought you into the world to be a blessing to humankind.

Top Bestselling Books of Chinua Achebe

There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra

Things Fall Apart

Arrow of God  

The African Trilogy: Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)  

A Man of the People

Chike and the River

Anthills of the Savannah

Home and Exile

No Longer at Ease (Macmillan Readers)

The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays 
   
Tweet

Chika Unigwe Wins $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature

Chika Unigwe.

Chika Unigwe has won the highly coveted Nigeria Prize for Literature for her novel On Black Sisters' Street.

Her novel competed against Only A Canvas by Olusola Olugbesan and Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Ngozi Achebe. The announcement was made by Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, Chairman of the Advisory Board who commended the prize winner's novel as “a work of outstanding merit”, while Professor Abiola Irele, Chair of Judges said: “What is striking about Chika Unigwe's novel is the compassion that informs it.”

Unigwe said when she saw the news on Twitter, she started crying.
Unigwe was born in Nigeria, but now lives in Belgium.
The Nigeria Prize for Literature is fully sponsored by the Nigeria LNG Limited.

Click here to read Toni Kan's interview with Chika Unigwe as she received the good news after the announcement on Thursday November 1, 2012.

Despite the horrors it depicts, “On Black Sisters' Street” is also boiling with a sly, generous humor. Unigwe is as adept at conveying the cacophony of a Nigerian bus as she is at suggesting the larger historical events that propel her characters. “On Black Sisters Street” marks the arrival of a latter-day Thackeray, an Afro-Belgian writer who probes with passion, grace and comic verve the underbelly of our globalized new world economy.

~ By Fernanda Eberstadt, Sunday Book Review of The New York Times, April 29, 2011.

Raw, vivid, unforgettable, and inspired by a powerful oral storytelling tradition, this novel illuminates the dream of the West—and that dream’s illusion and annihilation—as seen through African eyes. It is a story of courage, unity, and hope, of women’s friendships and of bonds that, once forged, cannot be broken.
~ Amazon.

On Black Sisters' Street tells the haunting story of four very different women who have left their African homeland for the riches of Europe—and who are thrown together by bad luck and big dreams into a sisterhood that will change their lives.

Each night, Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce stand in the windows of Antwerp’s red-light district, promising to make men’s desires come true—if only for half an hour. Pledged to the fierce Madam and a mysterious pimp named Dele, the girls share an apartment but little else—they keep their heads down, knowing that one step out of line could cost them a week’s wages. They open their bodies to strangers but their hearts to no one, each focused on earning enough to get herself free, to send money home or save up for her own future.

Then, suddenly, a murder shatters the still surface of their lives. Drawn together by tragedy and the loss of one of their own, the women realize that they must choose between their secrets and their safety. As they begin to tell their stories, their confessions reveal the face in Efe’s hidden photograph, Ama’s lifelong search for a father, Joyce’s true name, and Sisi’s deepest secrets—-and all their tales of fear, displacement, and love, concluding in a chance meeting with a handsome, sinister stranger.

On Black Sisters' Street marks the U.S. publication debut of Chika Unigwe, a brilliant new writer and a standout voice among contemporary African authors.

Praise for On Black Sisters Street 


“Chika Unigwe writes with moral urgency nourished by a nuanced understanding of the human condition and prose that is elegantly calibrated. And for all the dark turns her work takes, On Black Sisters' Street is suffused with warmth, hard-won wisdom, and a deep compassion.” 
 —Chris Abani, author of Becoming Abigail and Song for Night
 “ [‘On Black Sisters Street’ is] boiling with a sly, generous humor. Unigwe is as adept at conveying the cacophony of a Nigerian bus as she is at suggesting the larger historical events that propel her characters. ‘On Black Sisters' Street’ marks the arrival of a latter-day Thackeray, an Afro-Belgian writer who probes with passion, grace and comic verve the underbelly of our globalized new world economy.”
--The New York Times Book Review  (*an Editors Choice selection in the 5/10 NYTBR)
 
“Powerful....The author's raw voice, unflinching eye for detail, facility for creating a complex narrative, and affection for her characters make this a must read.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Gripping....As Unigwe tells her characters’ stories in interweaving narratives and time lines, the women embody depths of fear and displacement, as well as the will to survive and prosper."
--Booklist

“A novel of desperation, sexual exploitation, and, ultimately, sisterhood. … Unigwe has a talent for capturing the dashed dreams of young women who are stronger than they imagine. … The women’s personal stories are wrenchingly memorable.”
—Library Journal

“In her English-language debut, the Nigerian-born Unigwe convincingly exposes an unfamiliar world without sentimentality. Capable drama that puts a human face on the scourge of human trafficking.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Spellbinding…combines a storyteller’s narrative flair with a reporter’s eye for grim, gritty details about the sex industry. … Nigerian-born Unigwe crafts her characters’ voices with crystalline prose and compassion, in a revelatory work as tough, humane and unsentimental as its heroines.”
—MORE Magazine
“Chika Unigwe’s ON BLACK SISTERS STREET is a grand and compassionate and moving work of art. The best fiction succeeds when it allows a reader to open a door, step into a different world, look about and say, finally, I feel and know this place and these people as if I have visited many times before. Ms. Unigwe has done that for us with all the men and women of her new novel. We owe her much praise and much gratitude.”
—Edward P. Jones, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Powerfully and gently, Unigwe gives voice to African women who walk the streets of their nightmares and dreams."
--Sefi Atta, author of Everything Good Will Come

“Chika Unigwe brings an ethnographic eye and masterful storytelling to bear on this complex portrait of African sex workers in Antwerp.  Her startlingly physical prose offers a fresh look at lives made and unmade between Europe and Africa.”
--Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, University of Buffalo

“Chika Unigwe has evoked a chilling, brutal, and terrifying world with warmth, compassion, and courage. The voices of degraded African women are clearly heard, their bodies vividly rendered, their sorrows deeply understood, and their humanity ultimately realized. On Black Sisters Street is a dark tale luminously told, a stunningly moving book.”
—Lee Siegel, author of Love in a Dead Language

“A probing and unsettling exploration of the many factors that lead African women into prostitution in Europe . . . an important and accomplished novel that leaves a strong aftertaste. Unigwe gives voice to those who are voiceless . . . and bestows dignity on those who are stripped of it.”
—The Independent




Tweet

Free Books Are Not Enough To Revive Reading Culture in Nigeria

Dear UBA and Read Africa,

I sincerely appreciate your commendable commitment to corporate social responsibility by your laudable initiative Read Africa for championing the revival of the reading culture across Africa.

Distribution of books to pupils and other young people through their schools is proactive, but that will not be enough to revive a reading culture in Africa, because the problem is not with our children, but with our intellectually disorientated society of youths and older people who are more distracted by the challenges and vanities of catching up with the Joneses in the rat race than being attracted to reading for pleasure, because it is what the children see their fathers, mothers and uncles are doing that they would emulate?

Giving free books to children will not make their parents to go and buy more books for them later, because they have been disconnected from the intellectual appreciation of our literary culture.

Until we address the intellectual disorientation and disconnection of the youths and older generation, the reading culture cannot be revived by the mere distribution of free books.
How many books are you going to distribute?
100, 000 or 1, 000, 000 copies of one single title or several titles of a particular book?
Are the selected titles the kinds of books the present generation of children would like to read?

Have you studied why the Harry Potter novels or The Twilight Saga attracted millions of children in America, Europe, Asia and Australia, but did not attract even a million children in Africa and the Middle East?
What factors discouraged the children in Africa and the Middle East?

Edward of the Twilight Saga and Harry of the Harry Potter fame. Photo Credit: Fan Pop.


The Missing Clock and the Missing Link in Our Reading Culture

The 2011 Nigeria Prize for Literature was won by Adeleke Adeyemi aka Mai Nasara for his children’s book The Missing Clock and the Nigeria LNG Limited, sponsors of the highly coveted prize $100, 000 which is currently the biggest literary prize in Africa distributed thousands of free copies of the book to school children and others. But that has not made the book a bestseller and even though there are over 43 million Nigerians in Nigeria accessing the Internet with other millions in the Diaspora and millions of them spend an average of $76 million daily paying for internet access, mobile phone calls and text messages, not even one thousand of them have gone to Amazon.com or Glendora and other book stores online to buy copies of the book after all the news media publicity given to The Missing Clock by the sponsors and news reporters in Nigeria and abroad. Why?

The answer is neither a puzzle nor a riddle of the Phoenix and the Sphinx, but simply the fact that the intellectual disorientation and disconnection of majority of Nigerians and other Africans distract them from the appreciation of reading books, except the books on how to get rich quick, pornographic booklets and celebrity fashion and gossip magazines or society photo albums like the popular OVATION International magazine, I call Dele Momodu’s Society Photo Album.

If Nigerians spend over $76 million daily on GSM phone calls, text messages and internet bundles, therefore they can afford to buy thousands of story books if they are attracted to them!

How do we make reading story books attractive to millions of distracted Nigerians and other Africans?

The problem of their intellectual disorientation and disconnection can be solved by behaviour change and how do we do this?

The first thing is to know what they are attracted to that is making them distracted from reading story books and prefer wasting minutes and hours chatting, gossiping and talking on their GSM phones and exchanging the same conversations via text messages.

Why are they attracted to these mundane or temporal things that do not add much value to life?

In spite of the cheering reports of Nigeria’s GDP growing at seven per cent annually and being rated as one of the fastest growing emerging markets in the world, Nigeria is still one of the most insecure places on earth with more darkness than light in majority of homes and more missing meals than having three square meals daily among the majority of the over 160 million people. So, the uncomfortable conditions of living in Nigeria have an adverse affect on reading for pleasure and those reading for academic scholarship or professional titles do so because it is compulsory for their progress and success! So, they would rather spend $1 on what comes natural to them from the oral culture of story telling by chatting, gossiping and talking to themselves on their GSM phones than going to the bookshop or roadside bookseller to spend that $1 on a small story book to read just for the pleasure of reading. Chatting, gossiping and talking on mobile phones are more engaging, exciting and interactive than reading a story book.

By our oral tradition, Nigerians and other African naturally talk more and read less.
We are naturally a talking people and not a reading people!
Western education introduced us to reading and reading more for academic retention to pass an examination in order to get a qualification for further education or for a lucrative occupation/profession for our survival and welfare. That’s all. And once we have passed the compulsory examinations and secured the compulsory qualifications to secure the dream jobs or titular positions in catching up with the Joneses in the rat race, we don’t have anymore need for books, except to read newspapers, tabloids, watch TV and surf the Internet to continue our conversations on Facebook and other social media that will not challenge our intellect. And the herd instinct drives majority of us than the intellect.

The millions of Nigerians on Facebook do nothing more than post the trivial minutiae of their daily lives with complimentary photographs to tickle their fancies in romantic escapism.

Now what is the solution to the problem I have identified and analyzed to start a positive behaviour change in the mannerisms and nuances of the daily lives of Nigerians and other Africans so that they can be attracted to reading story books for pleasure and intellectual empowerment?

I have the solution which is simple in application and the same things Nigerians are attracted to will also be used to make them turn to reading story books.
Let us consider the following approaches.


Have we tried audio books?
If they don’t like reading books, they may like listening to the books!
So, we can upload audio versions of the stories of our writers on audio blogs like Blog Radio, Facebook, Twitter, Googlle Plus, and make them downloadable on laptops, desktops, iPods, iTunes, iPhones and other mobile devices as I have done on my blogs.

Have we done enough publicity for the books to create a social buzz around them?

Majority of Nigerian and other African authors and their publishers hardly have any publicity plan for their books.
They simply dump the books at the bookshops and expect people to rush their books when the people are also being attracted by other things buzzing around them on the street and on the internet!

In America, Europe and other developed countries, authors and publishers spend thousands to millions of dollars on publicity such as placing adverts on the pages of newspapers, magazines, TV spots, and on websites and go on book signing tours from place to place to attract readers to their books! And this is why they are attracting thousands and millions of readers.
So, Nigerian and other African authors and publishers should include multimedia campaigns for the promotions of their books and start active book signing tours to bridge the wide gap between them and their target readers.

We have to promote books like music and movies, because they are all for the same entertainment and enlightenment.
In fact, there is nothing wrong in making book trailers like movie trailers to attract readers to your story books!

What else?
You can add your own ideas!


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
Publisher/Editor
Nigerians Report
Nigerian Times
CEO, International Digital Post Network Limited
CEO, King of Kings Book International
Founder, Eko International Film Festival,
Founder/CEO, Screen Outdoor Open Air Cinema

Tweet

In the House of Dogs

Amazon presents the much awaited book In the House of Dogs [Kindle Edition] by Michael Chima Ekenyerengozi (Author).

“In the House of Dogs” is an unapologetic mirror of the contemporary Nigerian society with polemical commentaries and essays with humorous anecdotes on the Nigerian; focusing on critical issues of education, romance, marriage, religion, politics and other matters in twelve chapters by a single narrator.

Previewers have compared it to Chinua Achebe’s The Trouble with Nigeria, but noted that it has more depth since it has addressed more contemporary issues on the facts of life in Nigeria in the first decade of the 21st century within universal perspectives.

You can order for this special Kindle edition on http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0065KCBE2 or click on the cover image.







Tweet

13th Lagos Book and Art Festival Opens with Publishers Forum

The 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) opened this Thursday amidst the euphoria of the 81st birthday of our literary icon Chinua Achebe and the good news of British Nigerian playwright Janice Okoh's clinching the £16,000 Bruntwood Prize for Play-writing with her play Three Birds. It is the competition's largest single award to date. She is also popularly known for her play Egusi Soup that was premiered at the 2009 Hotbed Festival and taken on tour by Menagerie. Okoh was also a runner-up for the 2011 Verity Bargate Award for The Real House.



The noble grand old man of Nigerian Literature, Prof. Chinua Achebe celebrated his 81st birthday on November 16..



Bruntwood Prize winner Janice Okoh receiving her prize from Maxine Peake.

LABAF which is the biggest book fair and art event in West Africa started in the morning with the second publishers forum at the Goethe Institut on the 4th floor of the City Hall on the Lagos Island. The forum focused on "THE BOOK IN THE AGE OF THE MICROCHIP", exploring the opportunities in digital media and social networking sites for writers, publishers and book sellers.

"I Vote To Read" is the theme of this 13th edition of LABAF, founded and organized annually by the Committee For Relevant Art (CORA) in Nigeria.

It was an exciting forum with interactive sessions moderated by the brilliant Ayo Arigbabu, the Coordinator. Mr. Bamidele Sanusi of Best Technologies made a presentation on "Optimizing Digital Platforms for Book Editing, Design and Production", Kazeem Muritala of Wayne & Malcolm Incorporated spoke on "Optimizing Digital Platforms for Book Distribution, Marketing and Sales" and Deji Toye highlighted the "E-Business Opportunities for the Publishing Industry".

The opening day cocktail is at the Freedom Park this evening.

The colloquium is on "Africa in the Eyes of the Other" and holds on Friday November 18 at the Freedom Park on Broad Street, Lagos. There will be a Town Talk on "The Book in the Knowledge Economy" on Saturday November 19 and there are other literary, visual and theatrical activities open to the public. The festival ends on Sunday November 20, 2011.

The following is the programme of events presented by Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, the Editor of The Guardian on Sunday who is the Programme Chair.

DAY 1

FRIDAY (November 18), 9am-1pm (FREEDOM PARK)

1. (9 am, Hall 2) "My Encounter with the Book" (Kiddies’ Segment- Tunde Babawale (Director General CBAAC)-a motivational talk to kids, kicks open the kiddies’ segment of the festival.

2. (11am-1pm, Hall 1) The Festival Colloquium (I): Theme: "Documenting The Governance Challenges: Africa In The Eyes Of The Other"-I: Readings, Reviews, and discussions around (a) A Swamp Full Of Dollars- Michael Peel (b) Dinner With Mugabe-Heidi Holland; (c) A Continent For The Taking- Howard French.


Friday, (November 18), 1pm-3pm(FREEDOM PARK)

2A. (1pm-3pm, Hall 1)The Festival Colloquium (II) Arrested Development: “Why Can’t ‘They’ Get It Right?: "Africa In The Eyes Of The Other": Readings, Reviews, and discussions around (a) The State Of Africa-Martin Meredith, (b) Nigeria: Dancing On The Brink-John Campbell, (c) It’s Our Turn To Eat-Michaela Wrong

Friday, (November 18), 3pm-5pm(FREEDOM PARK)

3. "How Familiar Is This Town?". The City As A Key Character In the Fictional Narratives Of The Continent.

Readings, Reviews, and discussions around:

(1) Good Morning Comrades(Luanda, Angola)-, by Ondjaki

(2)The Yacoubian Building(Cairo, Egypt) by Alaa Al Aswany

(3) The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives(Ibadan, Nigeria)

(4)Tropical Fish (Entebbe, Uganda)-Doreen Baigana

(5) Under The Brown Rusted Roofs(Ibadan, Nigeria)

DAY 2

SATURDAY, (November 19), 10am-1pm(FREEDOM PARK)

4. (11am-1pm) "My Encounter with the Book" (Kiddies’ Segment- Austin Avuru (Petroleum Geologist and Author/Managing Director, Seplat Petroleum)-a motivational talk to kids .. (12noon to 1.30pm)

5. (12noon to 1.30pm) Town Talk1: Theme: "Books as tools of The Knowledge Economy: Can a book make you rich?" A top notch panel of discussants review the role of books in the Knowledge Economy, using three books as take off points: Hot, Flat And Crowded- Tom Friedman, The Tipping Point-Malcolm Gladwell, The Ascent Of Money-Niall Ferguson

5B. (1.30pm to 3pm)Town Talk2: Theme: "The Book As Key To The Knowledge Economy":

A conversation around Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.


Saturday, (November 19),

6. (3pm-4pm, Hall 1) Challenging The Present: African Authors And The Global

Discourse On Governance: Readings, Reviews and Discussions around: Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And What Can Be Done About It, By Dambissa Moyo, When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil and The Ogoni Struggle For Self Determination By Ike Okonta.

Musical Interlude/Live Performance (FREEDOM PARK)

Saturday, (November 19), 4pm-6pm

7. Mapping The Future: Four young authors and publishers under 35, discuss the changing landscape of the publishing industry and express, in detail, their dreams/plans in contributing to the revamp. Inserted in this conversation is a 25 minute presentation by Toni Kan with a working title: What happened to The Pace Setter Series- and when will the new Nigerian thriller come?


Saturday, (November 19), 6pm-10pm (FREEDOM PARK)


8. Festival Birthday Party

Combined birthday party for: Fatai Rolling Dollar@ 85, Chukwuemeka Ike @80, Benson Idonije@ 75, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett@ 70, Ebun Clark @ 70; Charly Boy @ 60; Richard Mofe-Damijo @50; Yeni Kuti @50; Joke Silva @50; Femi Akintunde-Johnson @ 50; Tunde Babawale @ 50; Sola Olorunyomi @ 50; Remi Raji @ 50

DAY 3

SUNDAY, November 20, 12noon (FREEDOM PARK)

9. Arthouse Forum: Art Of The Biography:Reviews and discussions of Femi Osofisan’s J. P. Clark: A Voyage, Adewale Pearce’s A Peculiar Tragedy: J. P. Clark and the beginning of modern Nigerian literature and Dele Olojede/Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo’s Born To Run: a biography of Dele Giwa.

Sunday, November 20, 2pm (FREEDOM PARK)

10. Stampede- "The Nigerian Abroad: Fictional Accounts Of The Immigrant Experience". A panel discussion on the The Phoenix By Chika Unigwe, Some Kind Of Black, By Diran Adebayo, 26A By Dianne Evans, A Squatter’s Tale, By Ike Oguine, Her Majesty’s Visit, By Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, Icarius Girl, By Helen Oyeyemi, Lawless, by Sefi Atta, The Thing Around Your Neck, By Chimamanda Adichie.


Sunday, November 20, 6pm (FREEDOM PARK)

11. Festival Play: Waiting Room by Wole Oguntokun: To Commemorate A Fresh Start Of Our Democracy.










~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, author of Children of Heaven, Sleepless Night, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe and In the House of Dogs.

Tweet

Book of the Month: A Love Rekindled

Myne Whitman is the most hardworking Nigerian romance novelist. She is also the most active online. Her second romance novel A Love Rekindled is our Book of the Month. You will enjoy it.



Ten years ago, Efe Sagay dreams of winning the United States Visa Lottery, until she meets Kevwe Mukoro in University. Kevwe is happy to remain in Nigeria; only he wants Efe by his side. Over time, Efe finds true love with Kevwe, and promises to marry him. Their dreams unravel when Efe wins an American Visa, and fresh violence erupts between their warring ethnic groups. Now, Efe is back in Nigeria, and she knows it’s a matter of time before Kevwe returns to her life. They finally meet again, but renewed desire is no match for bitter memories of heartbreak. Efe wants the traumatic events of the past resolved before she gives in to rekindled love.



A Love Rekindled is the second romance novel of Myne Whitman, a Nigerian author based in the US.




Myne Whitman is my pen name. I was born and raised in Enugu, Nigeria, where I spent most of my time, studying, reading and daydreaming or climbing trees and playing with the boys. I have a Master's degree in Public Health Research but have chosen my childhood dream of spinning stories. After a few years in Edinburgh, Scotland, I now live with my husband in Seattle, USA. I write and blog full-time, and also volunteer as an ESL tutor for a local charity. I critique with the Seattle Eastside Writers Meet-up and I'm also a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.

The Pacific Northwest of America is a great place but during the drizzling winter rains, I dream of long, hot, Nigerian days and the red palm oil of Banga Soup. A self-confessed adrenaline junkie, I love theme park rides and my wildest ride yet would be the Simpsons at Universal studios, Hollywood. Or maybe it was that reverse bungee jump I did in Scotland, hmm...lol.

In addition to writing popular fiction to get people reading, I am passionate about using the internet and social media to promote the book industry and literacy levels in Nigeria. To this end, I facilitated a session, "Social Media and the Book Publishing Industry", for the Publisher's Forum at the 2010 Garden City Literary Festival, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I also founded and work as the publisher and managing editor of NaijaStories.com, a critique website for aspiring Nigerian writers.

Click here to buy Myne Whitman's novels

Fake Prophet, Madam Boy’s Quarters, Iyobosa and other Nigerians

Fake Prophet, Madam Boy’s Quarters, Iyobosa and other Nigerians

In his gripping play, The Anger of Unfulfillment, Jekwu Ozoemene has captured the heart and soul of the disenchantment and discontentment of majority of Nigerians in his contemporary analysis of the Nigerian crisis.
The title of his captivating book of three plays is deduced from the indignation of the victims of the lingering anomie plaguing Nigeria as desperate times call for desperate measures in the struggle for survival and a sense of belonging. The author gives us a naturalistic montage of glaring realities of the challenges of living and working in Nigeria under a corrupt government of kleptomaniacs.

He takes us into the human trafficking ring of the fake Prophet, a tall bald and bearded middle-aged man with an imposing stature and his bootylicious assistant Madam Boy’s Quarters who must have been a Nigerian prostitute in Italy and their willing clients posing as the congregation of the fake duo posturing as ministers of a Christian fellowship. The well educated non-compromising and hopeful Adesuwa who uses her blog to expose the ills in the Nigerian society and her hopeless squatter Iyobosa, the flirtatious drama queen who has lost faith in the Nigerian Dream and exploits her sexuality to comfort herself show us the contrasts of two young Nigerian women who respond to the Nigerian crisis with positive and negative resolutions. Nari, aka “General Tinker-Tailor” the Niger Delta militant with his comrades Zino and Marshall tell us the raison d'être of their revolutionary mission for resource control for which they were ready to die. The Narrator who is also Greg the repentant 419 fraudster with the hilarious Ben and Orji binging at the local bar give us informed commentary on the social, political and economic malaise in the country.

Through these principal characters Ozoemene has succeeded to use the picture of each one to capture the psyche of the unfortunate victims of the corrupt ruling class.

The other plays address other unavoidable issues such as the fears and ignorance of the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in “Hell’s Invitation” where I could see another Adesuwa in the intelligent Stella who is the only female among four young men and they are all unemployed graduates from different tribes sharing a room with only one bed and discussing the nightmares haunting their Nigerian Dream. The exciting prospects of a dream job for one of them are soon threatened by the fears of having a compulsory HIV test. In the last play “This Time Tomorrow” Ozoemene takes us into the theatre world and probably reminiscent of his days with Theatre 15 at the University of Lagos where he studied English. The principal characters address the ethics and economics of the Nigerian family, social and political sensibilities of the old and young people in Nigeria.

Ozoemene’s characters are real people one can actually recognize among us in the Nigerian society and most of them like Madam Boys’s Quarters, Nari, Iyobosa, Orji, Bimbo, Aliyu, Papa Ruka, the eccentric Professor and his wife Folake,his brilliant and smart son Jide and daughter Keji with her sexy swagger are going to end up among the most memorable characters in Nigerian drama.

If you really want to know what life is like in Nigeria in the last decade of the 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century and how her citizens have been reacting to the challenges of surviving and succeeding in spite of the embarrassment and harassment of a corrupt government, then you should read Jekwu Ozoemene’s The Anger of Unfulfillment: Three Plays Out of Nigeria. It is a good recommendation in every collection of must read books.


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
Thursday April 7, 2011.

Releases displayed in Africa/Lagos time
7 Apr 2011
21:11	AU Commissioner receives international recognition
20:16	IBM's MRSA Infection-Fighting Nanotechnology Caps Century of Healthcare Innovation
6 Apr 2011
15:00	Se espera que el consumo mundial de cemento alcance cifras récord
14:34	African Union / Press statement of the 270th meeting of the Peace and Security Council
13:12	La GSMA demande au gouvernement nig?rian de lib?rer la croissance ?conomique en soutenant le d?ploiement de l'Internet ? haut d?bit mobile
11:00	IBM Helps Bring Smarter Healthcare to Nigeria's Cross River State
10:53	Est? previsto que el consumo mundial de cemento llegue a nuevas cotas
09:25	DHL Spells Out Renewed Focus on Africa as Trade Grows
09:00	Global Cement Consumption Set to Reach New Highs
08:00	La consommation mondiale de ciment devrait atteindre de nouveaux records
08:00	Globaler Zementverbrauch erreicht neue H?hen
5 Apr 2011
14:00	Buick Baskets for Children in Need Nets 3,000 Pairs of Shoes
10:08	GSMA Calls on Nigerian Government to Unlock Economic Growth by Supporting Mobile Broadband Rollout

Book of the Month: The Mandate of MKO Abiola

The Mandate of MKO Abiola
By Adeleke O. Adeyemi
Hardcover Only.

Price: US$25.20

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana CODENAME JUNE 12: MANDATE AND MAYHEM A Tragedy on the Greatest Threat Ever to Nigeria’s Ruling Mafia. And How it was Checked.


ISBN 978-978-37529-4-8
Copyright Adeleke O’ Adeyemi (Standard Copyright License)
Edition First Edition
Publisher Nigerian Times International
Published September 1, 2007
Language English
Pages 59

Binding Hardcover (dust-jacket)
Interior Ink Black & white
Dimensions (cm) 15.2 wide × 22.9 tall


About MKO Abiola

Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (August 24, 1937 – July 7, 1998), often referred to as M. K. O. Abiola, was a popular Nigerian Yoruba Egba businessman, publisher and politician. He ran for the presidency in 1993, and won, but remained President-Elect till his death, as he was denied his mandate when the election results were annulled by the preceding military president Ibrahim Babangida.

Linda Ikeji's Inspirational Masterpiece

All the articles in the book are inspirational but I also share my life experiences with readers. I hope more than anything else that everyone who reads this book learns something from it. I hope it changes their perception of some things and more than anything else I hope it inspires them to go out there and make something of themselves.
~ Linda Ikeji

Linda Ikeji’s first book It Takes You reads more like the autobiography of the Imo State born ex-model, entrepreneur and celebrity blogger. She shares the past experiences of the first decade of her life since she became a model at 18 and a successful one too. She tells us her challenges and how she overcame them and succeeded in spite of the odds against her.

The book is filled with great quotable wise words of advice showing Linda as an inspirational and motivational role model for youths in Nigeria and other parts of the world, because Linda’s experiences and testimonies are lessons for all.

“There are many words I don’t like…one of them is; IMPOSSIBLE!
Don’t talk to me and use the word IMPOSSIBLE! It does something to me. Because I know IMPOSSIBLE is NOTHING!,” Linda exclaimed in the first chapter of It Takes You telling us how she refused to be discouraged by those who told her that she could not get adverts for her FM&B magazine and she soon proved them wrong, because with faith in God what they said was IMPOSSIBLE became POSSIBLE!

The most moving experience Linda shared with readers is the loss of her dear friend, the handsome model Azubuike who believed so much in love and was murdered by escaping armed robbers on the St.Valentine’s Day of 2008 after taking his girlfriend home at Anthony, a residential area off the Ikorodu road in Lagos, Nigeria.
You have to read her book to know the rest of the story and so much more.

Bookalleria recommends you Read It!


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima