I am a diehard fan of Angelique Kidjo. She has a new album, Oyo, out in stores now. As usual, it looks chock full of duets with other famous artists. Frankly, I can do without all of these. Angelique's voice, her style are infectious enough without being watered down and strained through someone else's interpretation.

This might be very old news for some, but back in October 2009, Kidjo wrote a song inspired by Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them. I've already said all I need to say about the book, so I won't say anymore here.

The Yoruba song, "Agbalagba," is loosely translated as:

Children are the guardians of the future
I beg them not to forget their roots
Whatever wealth and riches you will earn
Please celebrate the memory of your ancestors
Every morning is a new day
So many challenges that you will face
Wherever you will live, even far from your home
Never forget the land of your ancestors

Listen to the song here.

Thanks for the comments on the previous blog. I am glad some folks agree with me, but I wanted to be clear about something. To borrow a phrase from my women writer's workshop, I will say that Uwem Akpan's book "didn't work for me." It worked for Oprah and, doubtless, millions of others, just not me. That doesn't make it a bad book not worth reading, it just makes it a book I didn't enjoy. I'm not telling you not to buy it, I'm encouraging you to read it and decide for yourself.

There are no good or bad books. People who say that there are usually have an agenda. I think that each book represents a writer's effort and courage to impart their view of the real or imaginary world. That makes the experience of reading infinitely valuable, allowing us to tap into our shared humanity even if a particular book falls short of our expectations.

Some people question Oprah's choices, and I'm occasionally among them, but I think her choices are valid even though she may not pick the books that I would. What she says is, Hey, this book really worked for me and I think you should read it. So we all go out and buy it, then decide for ourselves whether it works for us or not. (Without her, I would never have known that there was a Jesuit priest from Ikot Ekpene with an MFA who writes short stories! Amazing.) She gets us reading and I think it's a very good thing.

If we acknowledge the prevalence of poverty p*rn and other such literary trends, the answer is not that so-and-so's book should not be published or read, it is for us to read and write more, to language ourselves, to create more alternatives. Bit by bit we will dispel the myths and understand each other better.

I think it can be really dangerous for people (myself included, of course) to criticize what they haven't labored to produce. Making art is not an easy, impartial, or democratic process. It is personal, subjective, emotional, and largely biased by a singular point-of-view. You can't any more criticize it than you can a human being for having a different perspective than your own.

That said, when we look at the larger patterns of mainstream media, the stereotypical perspectives promoted and advanced, we might criticize the powers for their choices. And I definitely think that's valid. But respect should always be paid to the artists.

The courage it takes to write even one word deserves a measure of respect. (And I should have given the man props for being an Akwa Ibomite!) I think his writing is important even if it doesn't work for me. I would be interested in following him over time.

Am I making sense? I hope so. I will try to be more constructive in the future.

I have been trying to fix a particular chapter for about a week now, to submit for a grant application due Friday. This means I have been spending vast amounts of time simply staring into space waiting for the words to appear. Often times it takes reading someone else's work to figure out just what is not working in mine. Unbeknownst to my process, The New Yorker published a short story, Baptizing the Gun, by acclaimed author Uwem Akpan (or at least, let us say, "Oprah's Book Clubbed" author, not sure the level of critical acclaim that affords apart from the NYT bestseller list). What a delight to see mention of Awilo Longomba in the pages of such a stuffy mag.

Last year, Akpan published a collection of short stories, Say You're One of Them, about children growing up in various conditions of social, economic, and political disrepair throughout Africa. I bought the audio book several months ago and have waited to review it here as I have taken long to get through the book. At first I thought it was the poor audio recording (imagine fake, largely caricaturized African accents) that was stopping me in the work, but then my sis, also in Nigeria for the holidays with paperback version in tow, echoed my same impression of the book. I slogged partway through the paperback, silencing my brain's refusal to engage with the characters and settings, ultimately giving up on the whole thing in the end.

It is the kind of text that is unreadable to me, in certain ways, representing in labored, broad, overly historical strokes what should instead be subtler, simpler, and more personal stories. Akpan is a writer young in craft, and it is often apparent in the stories when he tells more than shows what is going on. I find in his stories the same problems I find in my own work, that frustrate me to the point where I cannot read another single word of my not-so-subtly-embedded social commentary, or bold attempts to expose the "rawness" of life. I am well aware that this writing of mine must be refined before it can be presented to the world, or maybe it does not need presenting at all, as it is but an echo of more famous and highly-praised attempts at portraying the rawness of life.

Perhaps there is something more interesting in understanding why certain powers are so captivated by these endless stories of war and starving babies and abuse? For Oprah in particular, whose narrative of the African girl child echoes the one portrayed in Akpan's book by a less than skillful hand. It's not my intention to berate the man, or to question his success, but to attest that it is the desire to refine that matures one as a writer. And that we should all, myself included, continue honing our craft, being truer to our histories and characters and stories especially when others have cosigned them, taking them at face value, baptizing us as writers in a literary landscape languaged primarily by white supremacist imperialism.

But what I really meant to say was, after reading Baptizing the Gun, I had a huge belly-holding chuckle. Three quarters of Akpan's short story take place in a Lagos go-slow, with all the necessary child hawkers and Ndombolo music and food stalls by the roadside. Here I was struggling to edit my own chapter, that starts in a Calabar go-slow, trying to cut back on the amount of visual stimulation and provide more space to make it readable, when Akpan is just piling and piling and piling it on. So perhaps I can consider my job well done?

There are a lot more technical issues with his story that make me wonder why The New Yorker included it. Again, not to berate the man, but simply to understand what it all means.

my sis hipped me to this today...oprah selected "say you're one of them," a short story by Uwem Akpan, for her latest book club selection. i am speechless. not only is he naija, but an akwa ibomite from ikot ekpene. (in case there is any confusion about my pride, my father's village is ifa ikot idang and my mother's mbak etoi. akwa ibom isong-oooo!)

his bio says he started writing fiction at night during seminary, then went on to earn an mfa in writing from UMich. what do you call a jesuit priest with a master's in fiction writing? a nigerian. :)

perhaps if oprah and her legion followers have room in their hearts for uwem then there might be some more for me. i leave tomorrow for my writer's residency. nearly hyperventilated over a bin of travel toothpaste today at Target (couldn't decide which one i wanted). i don't know how to pack. taking deep breaths...