By Anote Ajeluorou
As NB/Farafina Trust Creative Writers Workshop
increasingly looks pan-African, with two Kenyans at this year’s workshop,
there’s hope that the continent’s writers will continue to enjoy support
through needed training and direction. With Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s brimming
passion for mentoring young writers alongside her co-traveller and Kenya’s
Binyivanga Wainana, indeed, many aspiring African writers need not look to
Europe and America for the fillip necessary for honing their writing craft.
Evidence of this showed two Fridays ago
in Lagos at NB/Farafina Literary Evening when the seventh edition of the yearly
workshop was brought to a close at Oriental Hotel, Lekki, Lagos. According to
Adichie, “This is the highlight of my year. My dream is create a pan-African
space to validate African writers”. She commended MD/CEO of Nigerian Breweries
Plc Mr. Nicolaas Vervelde for being a reader of books, managing a company and
being sensitive to the needs of writers. She also commended Wainana and
described him as “a force of nature in African literature. I think he’s the
best prose writer in Africa at the moment and his passion about African writing
is unrivalled”.
She said up to 1000 entries were
received for the workshop, but regretted that only 25 got selected. Adichie
also gave assessment of this year’s workshop outcome and said, “Those selected
have spectacular writing. In any case, writing workshops don’t teach you how to
write, but they validate your writing. Other participants help to spur you to
write; they make you believe you can write, whether you have good or bad
reviews. I can tell you their writing has been absolutely fascinating. We need
to own and tell African stories”.
Adichie urged parents to read as well so
as to motivate their children. In fact, she said parents’ reading should go
beyond religious tracts. She also asked students to read beyond their school
textbooks. She lamented how little emphasis is given to literature, saying, “We
diminish the importance of reading literature”.
Adichie spoke further about her
impression of the talents at the workshop, noting, “I skipped the usual basic
workshop notes because of the sense of confidence I saw in them. Their stories
were valid. I loved to see female characters taking charge of their lives and
dictating how they want to live their lives. This is a generation of African
writers whose stories are valid”.
On whether she’d like her stories and books
translated into Igbo, Adiche bemoaned how educational policies were skewed
against African languages that tend to relegate them as against foreign ones.
She charged, “Why are we not giving value to our African languages? How many
people can read in Igbo? There’s political and emotional power that we give our
local languages, but how many us speak those languages? Parents don’t teach
their children their local languages any more”.
Wainana also gave his assessment of the
workshop outcomes, and particularly praised the female writers at the workshop
for their confidence in taking on otherwise taboo subjects. According to him,
“We’ve been seeing very talented young writers. This is a generation of young
women who are confident. Their political and feminist improvement and
commitment was all-round. It’s a beautiful generation. The dominant issues at
the workshop included gender, political change, sex and honesty. There has also
been the difficulty of looking at ourselves and being able to say things the
way they are. But it happened in this workshop. The diversity of experience in
Africa is incredible!”
Adichie also corroborated Wainana on the
issues that dominated, adding, “We talked about gender, sexuality and searing
honesty; even the decision to write is a political power”.
On his
part Vervelde promised longterm deal for the continent’s aspiring writers, as
his company was ready to continue its role of interventions, discoveries and
encouraging talented writers to be the best they could be, with the workshop
facility. According to him, “As a socially responsible company,
Nigerian Breweries remains committed to winning with Nigeria by championing
causes that add value to the society. This has resulted in the execution of
various projects and initiatives such as the building of classrooms and
libraries in both primary and secondary schools across communities in Nigeria.
“We also executed the ‘Beyond the School
Initiative’, a career counselling programme for senior secondary students in
Lagos. In May 2015, we launched the ‘Maltina Teacher of the Year’ a new initiative
aimed at recognizing and celebrating exceptional public secondary school
teachers around the country.
“When Nigerian Breweries began this partnership
with Farafina Trust to sponsor the Creative Writers Workshop seven years ago, this
partnership was founded on our company’s desire to encourage the development of
literary writing skills in Nigeria, as part of our strategic corporate
initiative for talent development and youth empowerment in Nigeria. Since then,
the Creative Writing Workshop has become a major item in our Corporate Social
Responsibility calendar. Through this platform, driven by Chimamanda Adichie,
Nigerian Breweries and Farafina Trust have helped to discover and nurture
literary skills in Nigeria.
“I have no doubt that the Creative Writing
Workshop has helped to fine-tune the skills of Nigerian writers as well as
encourage potential writers to fulfill their desire for self-expression. I
thank Chimamanda and her Farafina Trust team for their contributions to make
many writers’ dreams come true”.
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