USA Africa Dialogue Series - New home of Nigerian literature

Social media giant, Facebook, is fast becoming the ultimate platform for burgeoning Nigerian writers who want to tell their own stories. Solomon Elusoji reports

"Okwudilichukwu Obu possesses a riveting online persona on Facebook. He writes incredibly funny short stories and poems that paint the caricature of a black society on a canvas of lucid reality. It is very easy to believe he lifts these pieces from lost, ancient books, but usually, they follow the news – a poem for recent victims of Boko Haram's debauchery; fictionalised accounts of his day-to-day struggles as a practising lawyer, husband, and an avid observer of the human condition.

"I post stories here as writing exercises," he told THISDAY. "I have a terrible calligraphy, so the phone is the best device to use. It is also very handy to say the least. It does not present one with the cumbersome weight which a laptop or even an I-Pad does. The stories are writing exercises."

It is hard to believe they are though, since their form reflects a garish opulence that has been reared in the farms of literary gatekeepers. And the consistency with which he churns out these works resembles an

endless stream which does not dry up, even during a drought. What keeps him going, he observed, is the realisation of the role his works play."

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/new-home-of-nigerian-literature/202638/

- Ikhide