RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Interview: The short story is not a try-out for the novel—EC Osondu

It was a fantastic poem. Still is.

We had planned an entire issue on ebola. That did not materialize.
Two key writers did not provide the papers as promised.
We did not want to publish the poem outside of a general
discussion of ebola. and decided to wait for an appropriate issue.

Editors throw stuff in the trash bin from time to time
but your poem was too good to suffer that fate.

We were thinking of a future issue, on the anniversary of the ebola outbreak.
The poem would fit nicely into that theme, but authors have to come forward
to provide a context. We have no guarantees at this point.

So in the meantime publish it elsewhere. We can
re-publish with the permission of the journal.



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: Chidi Anthony Opara [chidi.opara@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 4:13 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Cc: chidi.opara@gmail.com; Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Interview: The short story is not a try-out for the novel—EC Osondu

"You were crying wolf months before Buhari took office…….." (Professor Gloria Emeagwali)

Prof,
Yes and the pack of wolves are now baying at our "Federal Character", for instance.

Well, since you have gone personal, let me ask this question; was my poem "Their New Demon Named Ebola" which you described as "fantastic", deleted or thrown into the trash bin?

CAO.


On Sunday, 30 August 2015 18:51:53 UTC+1, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
Good question. Let me put it this way:

You were crying wolf months before Buhari took office.

If a cub should make an appearance right now, the credibility factor
may kick in. You may get a muted response when you cry wolf.

Extreme Afro-pessimists thrive on scare tactics and fear.

With extreme Afro - pessimists I put on a bullet proof - just in case they
plan on blowing everything up, including me.


Extreme Afro-optimists merit some concern also. I
get my salt sprinkler ready and warn them to look out for
land mines, some of which may have been set by the extreme Afro-pessimists.


Moderation is key.







Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net<http://africahistory.net>
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: Chidi Anthony Opara [chidi...@gmail.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>]
Sent: Sunday, August 30, 2015 1:17 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Cc: Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Interview: The short story is not a try-out for the novel—EC Osondu

"I absolutely have no time for the extreme Afro-pessimists. I generally press the delete button or throw their work in the garbage bin. Literally." (Professor Glory Emeagwali).

Prof,
And how do you deal with the extreme Afro-optimists?

CAO.


On Saturday, 29 August 2015 21:08:53 UTC+1, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:


I absolutely have no time for the extreme afro-pessimists. I generally press the delete button -
or throw their work in the garbage bin. Literally.

They are intellectually lazy non-thinkers with nothing to offer but moans and
groans. There is no sunlight, no bright colors, no glimmer of hope, no silver lining,
no opening for a better day, no encouragement.

No practical solutions do they have. Their mission is to kill dreams and
suffocate aspirations.

They are almost in the same category as the fundamentalist
suicide bombers - except that their aim is to blow everybody and everything up -
from a safe distance.

If F.C Osondu is one of them, I have no time to waste reading his work. But judging
from the theme, the family house that is not for sale, maybe he does not fit in this mold.

I may give his short stories a try.

Thanks for letting us know about this collection.


Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net<http://africahistory.net><http://africahistory.net>
________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx> [usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>]
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 2:20 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<https://webmail.ccsu.edu/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Interview: The short story is not a try-out for the novel—EC Osondu

https://moonchild09.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/749/

Nigerian novelist and short story writer EC Osondu won the Caine Prize in 2009 for his story "Waiting". Since then he has released a short story collection, Voice of America and now his debut novel, This House is not For Sale, which focuses on a family house and its many idiosyncratic inhabitants. He talks about the novel and more in this interview. Enjoy!---Abubakar Adam Ibrahim


Even though This House is not for Sale is a novel, it has the qualities of loosely connected short stories. What was the idea behind that?

Osondu: There is a sense in which the word novel implies newness, strangeness-if you will. In Ars Poetica, Czeslaw Milosz says that he has always aspired to a more spacious form. That more spacious form is what I aspire to. Read together they make sense, read alone they cohere. It is funny that people are more concerned with the shape than the content but then again, one is reminded that many of these comments are from people who have not read much. And one must forgive them their severe limitations. How many of them have heard of or read Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch a work that can be read according to two different sequences of chapters and comes with ninety-nine expendable chapters and a suggestion by the author to read the book from chapter to chapter or to hopscotch through it.

I have always been fascinated by the history of unoccupied houses be it the house just before the Third Mainland Bridge on the way to the Island or the one called Zik's House in Ikeja.

For the most part I think African writers have been writing the received standard version of the novel. And any attempt to stray is met by howls of bewilderment especially by our new breed of failed writers turned critics.


Cont: https://moonchild09.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/749/


Funmi Tofowomo Okelola

-In the absence of greatness, mediocrity thrives.

http://www.cafeafricana.com<http://www.cafeafricana.com/>






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