As this is a special event it is FREE, but please arrive by 7 pm to allow time for the discussion leaders to give you – the first 30 participants to arrive – the £4 subsidy towards the cost of the book before the discussion starts.

Excerpt from review -
The African village where most of the novel’s characters live is called Mannobe. It is described as … a laid-back, fruit-off-the-vine place for as long as people could remember. The reader is introduced to quite a number of characters, all with suitably exotic names, such as Jericho, Babylon, Driver. Not really apparent which of them is male or female which all adds to the mystique.

Jericho, (who’s female by the way), is a beautiful young woman. She’s curious about the outside world so like many before her, she’s taken the brave step of sampling life in a big, bustling city. She returns to her home village with some rather pretentious airs … and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho’s mother had attended an interview in her past at her daughter’s new boyfriend’s family home. A veritable mansion with … sweeping rooms that took longer than a river to cross. What a lovely way of describing luxury in an essentially poor area of Africa. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?

Okereke literally barrages the reader with her characters at the beginning of her novel and it does take a little time for them to settle into the imagination. There’s a sense of a bustling village in this book where communal meals are the norm and people are forever popping in to visit neighbours and friends.

Read more?

About Chioma:
Chioma Okereke was born in Benin City, Nigeria. She started her writing career as a poet and performed throughout Europe and the United States before turning her hand to fiction. Her work has been shortlisted in the Undiscovered Authors Competition 2006, run by Bookforce UK, and in the Daily Telegraph‘s ‘Write a Novel in a Year’ Competition in 2007.

Buy the book:
The book is currently selling on amazon.co.uk for £6.00 with free postage so buy it fast if you can. Remember, if you’re one of the first 30 to arrive on the night you get £4.00 back!

For many years audiences of African Writers’ Evening have complained about how hard it is to locate books by African writers in mainstream bookshops. Even when they are in stock, they are rarely in a consistent section: sometimes in a special ‘Black’ section, sometimes with the ‘normal’ books. While a lot of this is changing African Writers’ Evening have organised this event to achieve two things -
1) make a sizeable array of books by African writers published in the UK available in one place at discounted prices
(some of the publishers involved are Random House/Vintage, Profile/Serpents Tail, flipped eye/mouthmark, little brown/Virago and Routledge/Wasafiri.)
2) bring the authors and some of the publishers into the marketplace so they can see that there are actual lovers of African writing out there, while providing a forum for possible dialogue and interaction.

The way the AFRICAN BOOK MARKET works is simple:

* It is on from 5-10pm on July 16 2010 at the Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX.
* It is FREE
* You can STOP IN anytime 5pm and 10pm
* There will be books by African writers from major as well as smaller publishing houses AT DISCOUNT PRICES. Also available will be magazines that feature and review writing from Africa.
* Some members of staff from the publishing houses will be present.
* Authors, including many of our previous features such as Yaba Badoe will be dropping in at various times during the day to sign books and talk to readers. Follow us on twitter or facebook to be kept updated on the authors who are coming at very specific times: Twitter | Facebook

walk in – buy a book – enjoy!

This March, African Writers’ Evening features veteran Nigerian writer Peter Kalu all the way down from Manchester for a début AWE reading in London. Alongside him will be Lola Jaye, also from Nigeria, who will be reading from her newish novel, While You Were Dreaming. In an all West African affair, the event will be hosted by SABLE magazine founder and editor Kadija Sesay, who will also introduce work from a groundbreaking anthology, ‘Dreams, Miracles and Jazz’, co-edited by Helon Habila. As usual, there will be floor spots from some of the emerging African writers on the UK scene.

BIOS:
Pete Kalu is a poet, novelist, editor, activist and playwright. He started writing as a member of the Moss Side Write black writers workshop. Writing prizes he has won include: Pants, Winner, BBC/Contact Theatre Dangerous Comedy Award;  Hills Trees Green Stuff, winner, Bradford and Cumbria Playscript competitions;  No Trace, Winner, Black Film Festival Award. Pete is the author of six novels, and numerous radio and theatre plays under his own name as well as under several pseudonyms. He is an editor for North West of England based publishers, Crocus and Suitcase Press.
Website:  www.peterkalu.co.uk

LOLA JAYE:
Lola Jaye was born and raised in London and has also lived in Nigeria. Her first novel, ‘By The Time You Read This…’ was published by Harper Collins in 2008 and she contributed to the National Quick Read campaign on World Book Day in 2009 by writing a self-help book, ‘Reaching for The Stars – How to Make Your Dreams Come True’. Lola’s second novel, ‘While You Were Dreaming…’ was published in May 2009 and her work has been translated into several languages including Korean and German.
Website: www.lolajaye.com

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For our annual finale, African Writers’ Evening returns to its exploratory origins – with four short readings from emerging writers, followed by a featured reading from Nadifa Mohammed, a Somalian writer who is herself still waiting for the release of her first novel by HarperCollins. Hosted by Nii Ayikwei Parkes.

Nadifa Mohamed

NADIFA MOHAMED – Born in Hargeisa, Somalia in 1981 as the country fell into dictatorship, Nadifa Mohamed moved to London with her family in 1986, just before the beginnings of civil war as Siad Barre lost his grip on power. She was educated in London and went to Oxford to study History and Politics. Her début novel, Black Mamba Boy, based on the true story of her father’s life in 1930s, was acquired by HarperCollins UK in 2008. Nadifa is currently working on her second novel.

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After six years running in the UK, where we have gone from humble beginnings in the storied Poetry Café to regular events at London’s leading arts venue, the Southbank Centre, African Writers’ Evening heads to New York to share some work from West and Central Africa. Former NYPL fellow, Mohammed Naseehu Ali (Ghana) reads alongside Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique Noire winner Patrice Nganang (Cameroon) in what promises to be a scintillating evening of some of the best literature coming out of Africa. Join us on Friday 11 September, 2009 for a groundbreaking evening in New York. Hosted by author and publisher Nii Ayikwei Parkes.

Patrice Nganang

Patrice Nganang
Born in Yaoundé, Cameroon in 1970, Patrice studied Comparative Literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (Germany), from which he also holds a PhD. He published a collection of poems, Elobi, in 1995, and has since written four novels, of which the most acclaimed is Temps de chien, which was awarded the Prix Marguerite Yourcenar (2001) and the Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique Noire (2002). Temps de chien has been translated into German (Hundezeiten) and English (Dog Days, University of Virginia Press).

Patrice is Assistant Professor of Literary Theory at SUNY – Stony Brook and is a recognised African literature specialist contributing regularly to academic journals around the world.

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Mohammed N. Ali

Mohammed Naseehu Ali
Born in Kumasi, Ghana in 1971, Mohammed Naseehu Ali is a writer and musician. A 2007 New York Public Library Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellow, he is the author of the short story collection, The Prophet of Zongo Street (Amistad, 2005).  As a musician he has composed original soundtracks for independent movies and written music for DVD trivia games based on the blockbusters Shrek and Madagascar. Mohammed is a graduate of Bennington College and his fiction and essays have featured in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Mississippi Review, Bomb, Gathering of the Tribes and Essence. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.