Isak

Is Nigerian Literature Too Timid?

That's the contention of Charles Nnolim, a professor that won last year's National Merit Award from the Nigeria's government--even as he acknowledges the significant proportion of prominent African writers with Nigerian roots. Of especial interest is his hope for a tradition of speculative and science fiction to emerge from African artists:

Nnolim has also recommended utopian literature to African writers, and his reasons for that are manifold. “We have no reality that is impracticable. The issue is that, because of the way we were enslaved and colonised, we are too timid to write about others; we are too timid to talk about the future. The white man writes what we call fortuitous literature and science literature. We don’t have science literature in Africa. Science literature projects time in the future and starts out to solve the problem. A French writer, in 1860, wrote on the journey from the earth to the moon, projecting a time when man would launch a satellite to the moon, and one hundred years later, America launched a satellite to the moon. But what African writers do is to look backwards to when our grandfathers were this and that, all the Timbuktu greatness, and we have not been able to look into the future; and it is affecting our governmental plans, because if you don’t look into the future, you won’t reach out,” he said.

I don't agree that the dearth of African science fiction necessarily equates into a fiction tradition that "looks backwards." But would I be avidly interested in experiments in science fiction from African writers? Yes, yes, yes.

Frida Kahlo for Halloween

In the spirit of a day that celebrates the frightening, a suitably unsettling painting:

GUEST POST: Engaging Journalism: Bringing Color to Facts

 

 

By Olivia Coleman
Guest Writer

Too often, news stories are seen as boring yarns comprised solely of dry factoids. This view is not surprising considering the amount of mediocre news pieces splashed on the front pages of newspapers and on the pages of news websites today. Society's need for instant news has caused a sharp decline in journalistic quality, but for those who are currently working in the field or endeavor to someday become journalists, there are ways to bring the color back to the facts and make journalism engaging again.

The news industry is a competitive one and many journalists rush to publish news articles as soon as the news event occurs in order to bring in more readers. As a result of this rushed method of reporting, most journalists do not have time to write up a proper news story. Instead, they simply string together as many of the facts of the article as possible and submit it for publication without bothering to explore the story of the news piece. Though this is undoubtedly important because it keeps the public informed about what is going on, it also makes for dry and uninteresting reading. Those who wish to create engaging stories that will captivate readers must be willing to spend more time working on the article in order to create an engaging news story.

One of the best ways to make a news story more interesting is to realize that it is called a news story for a reason journalists must find the story behind the news piece. Consider what makes up a fascinating story, such as the combination of strong characters and a carefully plotted plot and narrative. Journalists can use these same elements to tell their news stories. All of the people who are involved in the news piece as well as those being interviewed are characters in a story. As such, journalists should introduce them in the article like an author would introduce a character in a fictional tale, taking the extra step to describe them if it would add to the piece. After all, it is people who drive most of the stories that journalists work on, making it important to capture the human characters in news pieces in order to give life to the article's events. In addition, characterizing the major players in the article will allow readers to better relate to the story because while the average reader may not relate to bankruptcy or politics, he or she would relate to the basic human experiences of strife, conflict, and emotion.

In addition to characters, journalists should also look for the "plot" behind the news events. Instead of just relating the events one after another like in a bare bones police report, journalists should analyze which events took place when and whether the sequence of actions is significant. For the important events, journalists can heighten the tension through dramatic narrative just as a fiction author would during the climax of the story. Chances are the events leading up to the climax would lend themselves to creating a tense environment anyway. Writing in an active voice with colorful verbs and phrases would also go far to create a compelling news story.

However, the most important thing that journalists need to keep in mind when creating an engaging news story is that the facts are still the most important things in the article. Though journalists may use the same techniques as a fiction writer to make the article fascinating, they still must stick with only the facts and avoid inserting any personal bias into the story. This means that they can only characterize the people involved in objective terms and only use the exact quotes provided. Journalism does not have to be dry thanks to engaging journalistic techniques, but it does still have to offer only the concrete facts.

 

Olivia Coleman writes most frequently about online colleges and universities. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: olivia.coleman33-at-gmail-dot-com.

Image Credit: Interaccess.org.

Isak Interview #7: Daniel Simon

This interview series features original conversations with folks around the world who are in the thick of literary culture -- the passionate writers, editors, critics, readers, translators, publishers, bloggers, designers, booksellers, poets, performers, journalists, and instructors who are bringing vibrancy and joy to the world of words. More than a rehash of things you have heard familiar names natter on about before, this series will turn its attention beyond the bounds of the usual suspects and the usual issues. This series is committed to a dynamic exploration of ideas, craft, language, literature, and culture with the people who are committing their lives to it. See more interviews here.

Daniel Simon worked through the quaking of the earth in Norman, Oklahoma, to finish this interview. (Skeptics can check the evidence here.) That will tell you something about his ability to focus--a characteristic that likely suits his role as editor-in-chief of World Literature Today, one of the finest and most well-designed literary magazines out there. The bimonthly is a joyful specialist in global literature and titles in translation, drawing on nearly nine decades of exploration into the world's storytelling. WLT was founded in 1927 as Books Abroad and changed its name in 1977. The magazine went through a significant redesign and reorientation in how it approaches literary criticism about five years ago, and now, moving into its 85th year of continuious publication out of the University of Oklahoma, WLT is the second-oldest literary periodical in the United States. (By the way: your first-time subscription is a mere $15 for the year--half off the cover price--for a limited time. Just saying.)

Beyond his role at the magazine, Daniel teaches in the University of Oklahoma's English department and School of International and Area Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in comparative literature with an emphasis on translation studies from Indiana University at Bloomington, and he has held editorial positions at the University of Oklahoma Press and University of Nebraska Press. Daniel, a native of Nebraska, now makes his home with his family in Norman.

In our conversation, Daniel and I discuss literary hybridity, an upheaval in book reviewing, national identity, international mongrels, the unique vantage of magazines with a long view, and how the mania for classification intersects with the emergence of the global writer. Also, Marcus Aurelius makes a cameo.

Here's Daniel:

BOOK REVIEW: Poetry of the Universe: A Mathematical Exploration of the Cosmos by Robert Osserman

Poetry of the Universe (1996) begins with a beautiful vantage: to tell the story of how scientific and mathematic discoveries revealed our world and our universe (in a process that is, of course, still unfolding). Moving from ancient revelations of geometry (literally, "measuring the earth") through the problems of making maps of an ellipsoidal earth to shifting conceptions of the shape of the universe, these tales are told briskly, in less than two hundred pages. It therefore gives the impression of an action-packed book. The author, Robert Osserman, is explicit about hinging this book on the excitement of discovery and the potency of imagination. In the acknowledgments, Osserman says that his primary debt is to a colleague at Stanford University that asked him: How is that mathematics is such a beautiful subject, yet students can go through for years of college taking many math courses and never finding out?

In response, Osserman takes the broad view--moving, by name, from scientist to mathematician to scientist in a quick chronicle of the unfolding universe; it is a strategy that makes the clear point about how discoveries build upon one another, and how scientists work within a vast community of other curious minds, unbound by time and space. This is not limited to Western history: there is a fascinating story about how, early in the ninth century, the spherical shape of the earth was derived by measurements and came to be accepted fact in Islamic science. Neither is this story limited to scientists: much attention is given to Georg Riemann's depiction of the spherical universe in the nineteenth century--which mirrors almost exactly the spherical universe conceived by Dante in The Divine Comedy.

The poet (in the Divine Comedy) is led by Beatrice from the surface of the earth, through the various spheres of the visible universe, and all the way to the Primum Mobile. Looking out from there, he finds himself looking in to the sphere of the Empyrean. There is no indication that one must choose a particularly point on the Primum Mobile; presumably, looking out at any point would give a view into the Empyrean. In other words, we are to think of the empyrean as somehow both surrounding the visible universe and adjacent to it. If that is the case, then the universe according to Dante would coincide exactly with the universe according to Riemann; they would differ only in the labels.

While mathematics is centered in Poetry of the Universe, it is approached conceptually; little of the fine points are outlined, though the text is buoyed by thorough endnotes and clear illustrations. I appreciate this stance, as it makes the book appropriate precisely for its target audience (those unconvinced of the beauty of mathematics, unschooled in it, and perhaps phobic of it). However, I could have used more explanation of several points in the text, and, despite my minimal training in mathematics, I would have liked to be walked through the math step by step, rather than being offered a swift analogy.

Most compelling to me is the book's discussion of how abstractions crept into our science and mathematics, which in turn quite literally abstracted our worldview. It is difficult for me to imagine a time when negative numbers did not exist. But indeed, that level of abstraction of numbers didn't exist relatively recently--and it met with strong resistance when they were tentatively proposed. Likewise with imaginary numbers, hyperbolic (non-euclidean) geometry, infinity, and shapes that don't exist in nature but are conceived by scientists. This is a powerful point: concepts that we imagine, that we cull purely from our capacity for irreality, are often are most efficient and purposeful pathway to reality. There seems to me to be a striking correlation here with the concept of faith.

Poetry of the Universe ends abruptly, with only the thinnest nod to a wrap-up. I found that particularly surprising for a book that, indeed, emphasizes poetics. All the same, it is an enjoyable read that filled in more than a few gaps in my understanding of the shape of the cosmos, and thereby deepening my sense of wonder.

Happy Birthday, Pablo Picasso

In celebration of the Spanish artist's birthday, here is his 1905-06 portrait of writer Gertrude Stein, which is housed at the Met. As an American expat in Paris, Stein held weekly salons that buzzed with brilliant artists that were awakening to the twentieth century. Her friendship and patronage of Picasso was born here. Stein describes the making of this portrait in her book, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932):

Picasso had never had anybody pose for him since he was sixteen years old. He was then twenty-four and Gertrude had never thought of having her portrait painted, and they do not know either of them how it came about. Anyway, it did, and she posed for this portrait ninety times. There was a large broken armchair where Gertrude Stein posed. There was a couch where everybody sat and slept. There was a little kitchen chair where Picasso sat to paint. There was a large easel and there were many canvases. She took her pose, Picasso sat very tight in his chair and very close to his canvas and on a very small palette, which was of a brown gray color, mixed some more brown gray and the painting began. All of a sudden one day Picasso painted out the whole head. I can't see you anymore when I look, he said irritably, and so the picture was left like that.

Speaking: Luisa Valenzuela

"It was a very literary house (that I grew up in), and Borges and Sábato, Bioy Casares—mainly Borges, and all these big shots in Argentine literature—were there very often, and I thought it was very fascinating, but not for me. I wanted to be a mathematician, an artist or a painter—anything but literature. I had always wanted to be an explorer. You don’t know how much of an explorer a writer is when you’re young. Literature seemed so passive and ironically, they were practically all very apolitical. Ironically, because this was during Peronist times. So all of these writers were out of a job because they’d been censored and kicked out of work. My mother organized paid lectures and readings in our home so that these writers could earn a living. I didn’t think I was political at all, myself, but I thought there had to be some action in all this, and there was no action. So I went into journalism. In journalism, you move."

--Argentinean author Luisa Valenzuela in a 1991 interview with BOMB. Her many books include Black Novel with Argentines, He Who Searches, The Censors, and Clara. 

Image Credit: Menoscuarto.

Literary & Media Indulgences - 10/25/2010

--Art Spiegelman on America's first graphic novelist. See a "panel" from this artist-storyteller above, via The Paris Review.

--Beyond the Nobel: Get your recommendations for great Spanish language literature over at PBS.org, from Jessa Crispin and translator Anne McLean, to add to your queue after exploring the work of this year's laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa. They took the stance of lesser-knowns (no Bolaño to be seen), but I'll go ahead and add a few others to the list, who have varying degrees of fame: Javier Marías, Alejandro Zambra, Luisa Valenzuela, and Marta Traba.

--Bill McKibben picks out the best shows of public radio in the New York Review of Books. At least eight of them are on regular rotation in the Isak household; I'll be checking out the others with some amount of trepidation. Oh, the riches!

--China's debate on the rights of the press, as chronicled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In short: Chinese journalists are pushing back against the harassment, abuse, arrests, and censorship of media professionals, cuing what we hope is the beginning of increased press freedom.

--Debra Adams Simmons is the new chief editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She replaces Susan Goldberg, who is off to work with Bloomberg News. Simmons is the first African American woman to helm the large daily paper. She says that  "watchdog journalism is, and will continue to be, our most important priority." This is also a good time to note that I've long appreciated the Cleveland PD's commitment to literary journalism and book reviews--uncommon in most mainstream media, let alone a metropolitan daily.

--Boom times for public radio means happy times for the rest of us.

--Detroiters: check out the gourmet underground.

--Rolling Stone makes "the case of Obama." Obama, meanwhile, recently uploaded his video contribution to the "It Gets Better Project" that is challenging the bullying of gay (or perceived to be gay) young people and its horrific consequences. It's a good video too. I especially like the part where he dismisses the idea of bullying being some sort of rite of passage that's fundamental to growing up. Because that idea is bullshit.

--I'm still wading through this, but there's a wonderfully extensive feature on Arvo Pärt, one of my favorite composers, in the New York Times Magazine. The Estonian composer that creates music that is pretty much like hearing God has just turned 75 years old.

--What the heck is going on with the anger at Christiane Amanpour? The host of "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," a new show, is such a competent and accomplished journalist that it's hard to imagine her being attacked for being unqualified. I get that her foreign experience wouldn't translate perfectly into domestic expertise, which is the show's slant--but I feel like it could be leveraged into meaningful nuance that would make her show stand out among its peers. (See her special on Islam and Islamophobia in the U.S. here.)  Anyway, Amanpour has some loyal fans: the Women's Media Center hosted a "watch-in" for her.

--Seriously? UCLA is considering shutting down its Islamic Studies program.

--On female friendships in literature.

--There's a nice interview with literary critic and novelist Amitava Kumar over at the Barnes & Noble Review.

-- ...and if your craving for writerly interviews isn't yet satisfied, check out the The Rumpus conversation with Dinaw Mengestu, the Ethiopian writer recently named one of The New Yorker's twenty top fiction writers under the age of forty. His second novel, How To Read the Air, was published this month.

--Oh, and there's more: The Root speaks with prolific British playwright Roy Williams about "the black British experience and why he's not afraid to use his plays as a platform to talk about race."

Behind the Curtain: Dzanc Books

Poets & Writers is featuring a nice article on Dzanc Books, the feisty independent publisher and literary nonprofit, that hinges on how it all works. Founders Steve Gillis and Dan Wickett (pictured above) discuss not only how Dzanc was born five years ago, but the how-to of today; the article takes a hammer-and-nails approach to how Dzanc has evolved--during an economic recession, no less--into a vital publisher of uncommon fiction and the pulse of a literary community that takes the shape of writers-in-the-schools, mentoring, magazines, international residencies, and the annual $5,000 Dzanc Prize for writers engaging in literary work in the community.

Bonus: there is a point in the article where one or the other of the founders--no, I'm not telling you which one, you have to read the article--leans back and says to the interviewer: "You want me to get philosophical?" I like my literary features with dramatic dialogue...

Related:

• "Book Review: Dawn Raffel's Further Adventures in the Restless Universe" (Isak)
• "An Interview with Steve Gillis" (Hobart)
• "Book Fare: Steven Gillis, Dan Wickett, Make Their Luck with Dzanc Books" (The Ann Arbor Chronicle)

Literary Magazine Club

Book clubs? Yeah, that's so last decade.

HTML Giant is spearheading the new frontier of literary magazine clubs by launching one of its own. Each month, the online magazine will lead a collective conversation on a different lit mag. There will be guest posts about individual pieces and the current issue as a whole, a chat with the magazine's editor, and ongoing discussion via Google Groups. And you--yes, you!--are invited to join in on the discovery of eclectic, living literature.

The first selection is New York Tyrant 8. For November? It's your favorite and mine, The Collagist (which means I better make sure as hell that my video book review of Amélie Nothomb's novel, Hygene and the Assassin, doesn't suck). In December, the LMC selection is Ploughshares; club members will be offered a special discount on a one-year subscription to the magazine. Altogether, the line-up looks to welcome a lot of different vantages.

Want in? Get in touch.

Speaking: Leslie Marmon Silko

"We're part of the natural world, we humans, and we need that reconnection every now and then--or I think we get sick, either spiritually sick or physically sick. We really need solitiude and connection with the wild things."

---Leslie Marmon Silko, as interviewed this week on NPR's "On Point." Her well-known books include Ceremony, Almanac of the Dead, and Storyteller. Her new memoir is The Tourqoise Ledge.