The late author Chinua Achebe is to be buried today on his family compound in the town of Ogidi, after his remains arrived in his home country, Nigeria, on Tuesday.
Yesterday about 2 000 admirers paid their last respects to Achebe at a stadium in Awka in Anambra state in Nigeria’s southeast. Today, Achebe will be buried following a service at a local Anglican church in Ogidi.
It is reported that several Nigerian leaders, foreign dignitaries and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, will be attending the funeral, while The Washington Post points out that Achebe “hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing”.
OGIDI, Nigeria — Writer Chinua Achebe, whose works focused on the conflict between modernity and the way of life in rural Nigeria, has returned home for the final time.
Achebe’s corpse arrived Wednesday in his native Anambra state. There, local government officials and writers feted the late novelist, who died in March at the age of 82. While the man himself hated the trappings of power in Nigeria, which include looting government funds, local elected officials arrived in tinted-glass SUVs with police sirens wailing.
The funeral of Nigeria’s celebrated writer, Chinua Achebe, is due to take place in his small hometown in a ceremony expected to draw crowds of mourners.
Achebe, author of the widely praised novel Things Fall Apart, will be buried on Thursday, two months after he died in the US aged 82.
His private burial on the family compound will follow a service at a local Anglican church.
GMA News was at the stadium in Awka where Achebe was honoured:
AWKA, Nigeria – The body of revered Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe arrived Wednesday in his home state in Nigeria, where hundreds of admirers packed a stadium to pay tribute a day ahead of his funeral.
A wooden coffin transported the body of Achebe, the celebrated author of the novel “Things Fall Apart”, who died in March in the United States at age 82.
The Guardian Nigeria looks at the weeklong transition activities which started on Sunday:
PROMINENT Nigerians from all walks of life continued their effusion of tributes as they paid their last respect to the master storyteller, Prof. Chinualumogu Achebe, who died on March 21 in the United States (U.S.), just as his remains will be interred today in his hometown, Ogidi, Anambra State.
In Abuja, where the weeklong transition activities started on Sunday, the literary giant was eulogised for blazing the trail that others followed. Among the dignitaries during his commendation service at The National Church, Abuja, was the Primate of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, The Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, who presided.
PEN Afrikaans bied ’n opwindende kortverhaalkompetisie vir skrywers tussen die ouderdomme van 18 en 30 jaar aan.
As jy gou speel en voor of op 10 Junie 2013 ’n getikte kortverhaal van tussen 2000-4000 woorde vir die kompetisie inskryf, kan jy dalk een van twee wenners wees wat $1 000 in die sak gaan steek, na die internasionale PEN-konferensie in Reykjavik, Ysland, gaan reis, en in die PEN International-tydskrif gepubliseer gaan word.
Persverklaring
PEN Afrikaans, die Afrikaanse afdeling van PEN Internasionaal, soek twee jong kortverhaalskrywers tussen 18-30 jaar oud om te benoem vir ’n internasionale kompetisie waarin die wenner $1000 en ’n reis na die internasionale PEN-konferensie in Reykjavik, Ysland, wen.
Geakkrediteerde PEN-sentra mag elk twee skrywers, ’n man en ’n vrou, vir hierdie kompetisie benoem. Skrywers mag nie op eie stoom vir die kompetisie inskryf nie en slegs benoemings deur PEN-sentra sal aanvaar word.
PEN Afrikaans sal op eie koste die twee wenskrywers se kortverhale in Engels, Frans en Spaans laat vertaal en hul kortverhale vir die kompetisie inskryf. PEN Internasionaal se beoordelaars kies dan uit al die sentra se inskrywings drie finaliste om in September 2013 die PEN Internasionaal-konferensie in Ysland by te woon.
Die wenner kry $1000 en die weninskrywing word in die PEN International-tydskrif gepubliseer. Selfs indien finaliste nie wen nie, kry hulle waardevolle blootstelling deurdat werk gelees word deur die invloedryke beoordelaarspaneel. Carole Blake van die literêre agentskap Blake Friedmann, wat internasionaalbekende Afrikaanse skrywers soos Deon Meyer, Marlene van Niekerk en Etienne van Heerden verteenwoordig, is een van die beoordelaars.
Om deel te neem moet skrywers voor of op 10 Junie 2013 ’n getikte kortverhaal van tussen 2000-4000 woorde stuur aan penkompetisie@gmail.com. Hulle moet ook ’n kopie van hul ID saamstuur asook volle naam, woonadres, en kontaknommers. Verhale wat nie die voorgeskrewe lengte is nie, word gediskwalifiseer.
“Hierdie is ’n wonderlike geleentheid waarvoor selfs gevestigde skrywers hul kiestande sou gee,” het Sonja Loots, voorsitter van PEN Afrikaans, gesê. “Die enigste probleem is dat die sperdatum om die draai is, so jong skrywers sal moet opskud.”
Kompetisiereëls
1. Deelnemers moet op 20 Junie vanjaar 18 jaarof ouer; en jonger as 30 jaarwees (let egter op die sluitingsdatum van 10 Junie).
2. Die kompetisie is slegs oop vir skrywers wat nog nie ’n boek gepubliseer het nie. Bydraers tot bloemlesings soos Nuwe Stemme en Nuwe Stories mag wel inskryf, mits hulle aan die ouderdomsvereiste voldoen.
3. PEN Afrikaans behou die reg voor om ’n wenner of wenners aan te wys slegs indien die gehalte van inskrywings dit regverdig.
4. Kortverhale moet in Afrikaans wees.
5. Kortverhale moet getik en in Word-formaat wees.
6. Kortverhale moet tussen 2000 en 4000 woorde lank wees. Inskrywings wat nie aan hierdie vereiste voldoen nie, sal gediskwalifiseer word.
7. Slegs een inskrywing per deelnemer. Indien meer as een inskrywing ontvang word, sal slegs die eerste gelees word.
8. Die sluitingsdatum is Maandag, 10 Junie om 14h00, Suid-Afrikaanse tyd. Geen laatinskrywings sal aanvaar word nie.
9. Slegs e-pos-inskrywings word aanvaar.
10. Inskrywings moet vergesel word van ’n afskrif van die skrywer seID of paspoort.
11. Inskrywings moet vergesel word van deelnemer se volle naam, woonadres en kontaknommers (telefoonnommers).
12. Die beoordelaars se besluit is finaal en geen korrespondensie sal daaroor gevoer word nie.
13. PEN Afrikaans se beslissing sal geneem word deur ’n beoordelaarspaneel wat uit die PEN Afrikaans-bestuurslede saamgestel is.
14. Aangesien daar min tyd is om die vertalings te laat doen, sal die vertalers se oordeel vertrou word en sal daarby volstaan word.
“Don’t just make good food. Make good food and enjoy doing it. Live a little.” So exhorts young media personality Scholtz, and believe you me, if you like to eat, and don’t mind the odd appreciative comment along the way, then this one is really going to hit the spot.
’n Bloemlesing waarvan die keuse gegrond is op die afsonderlike gedigte is nogal seldsaam, hoe teenstrydig dit ook kan klink.
Per slot van sake is so ’n boek nie in die eerste plek ’n verteenwoordiging deur verse van iets anders nie. In Afrikaans het ons naas hierdie bundeling van “gewildste” gedigte op die vers af bv. Fanie Olivier se versameling Die mooiste Afrikaanse liefdesgedigte (toevallig ook ’n Human en Rousseau-publikasie).
Hierdie mooi, ryklik geïllustreerde naslaanwerk waarin lesers veral agtergrond-inligting oor die belangrikste Bybelse verhale kan vind, is, soos die voorwoord self uitwys, een van vele wat gereeld op die mark kom.
Dit bly opvallend hoeveel publikasies oor die Bybel in hierdie genre nog steeds geskryf en gedruk word. Die Christendom is sekerlik, wat dit betref, nog springlewendig en die mark vir sulke boeke skynbaar onversadigbaar.
Alert!University of Cape Town English and Fine Art post-graduates have launched a new literary magazine, titled Prufrock. The magazine, which takes its name from TS Eliot’s “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”, “master of self-doubt and cynicism”, will feature longform non-fiction, fiction, poetry, photography and illustration.
In the maiden issue, Anton Harber, author of Diepsloot, presents a piece on the selective cultural boycott in South Africa in the 1980s. He recalls Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee’s opposing reactions when Salman Rushdie’s invitation to visit South Africa, shortly after the publication of the The Satanic Verses, was withdrawn, while at the same time, Harber’s newspaper, The Weekly Mail, was forced by the government to shut down for a month. Features on Kwazulu Natal’s amateur standup comedy scene, and young artists in Gaza, as well as a personal account of a South African intern at the The Paris Review’s 60th Annual Spring Revel in New York, are also included.
Prufrock is a new South African literary magazine founded by four University of Cape Town graduates, featuring longform non-fiction, fiction, poetry, photography and illustration. It calls itself simply “a magazine of writing”, believing in the pursuit of “damn fine writing” and a “means to put it in its place”.
‟It is inspired to act as a mouthpiece for a young South Africa, taking as its unlikely muse Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, master of self-doubt and cynicism and an embodiment of the post-honeymoon nation’s less becoming qualities: disillusionment, paralysis, apathy. Prufrock is a means to embrace this, to say the unsayable, name the unnameable and to have fun along the way.
Prufrock believes in the South African here-and-now, and that non-fiction can be just as beautiful and satisfying as fiction. In light of the Secrecy Bill, Anton Harber recalls the selective cultural boycott in 1980s South Africa: Salman Rushdie, just after the publication of The Satanic Verses, is due to visit South Africa to talk about freedom of speech. Literary bigwigs Gordimer and Coetzee, on separate sides of the fence, climb into the ring over his subsequent ‘disinvitation’. This as Harber’s newspaper, The Weekly Mail, is forced by government to shut down for a month.
Other features include Kwazulu Natal’s amateur standup comedy scene and a personal account of The Paris Review’s 60th Annual Spring Revel held in New York from the perspective of a South African intern. Young artists in Gaza speak about creativity under Hamas‟s iron grip. All is published here for the first time.
The maiden publication will be available for sale (R40) by Exclusive Books at this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival (17th – 19th May). It will also be available at The Book Lounge in Cape Town and Love Books in Johannesburg.
Nadine Gordimer and Ben Okri joined other bestselling authors in donating an annotated copy of a first edition of one of their books to an auction in aid of English PEN.
Okri’s comments on The Famished Road included his thoughts on the first paragraph: “Worked a lot on the opening paragraph: everything is in it: all came out of it; thinking of music; the opening notes; had to get the words absolutely right or the rest won’t follow….Odd that the beginning was written last, when I knew what the work was dreaming…”
Gordimer annotated The Conservationist with a long note that concludes: “I am no prophet but as a writer, the nature of a writer’s subconscious does, I seem to have seen that the “land issue” rising, growing from the past, would culminate as it exists now, in the 21st Century of dispossession. The question of equality of rights for the people of South Africa.”
The auction was held on Tuesday in London and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone “fetched a record price of $228,000″ according to the International Business Times:
Even as the series stopped with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the magical charm of JK Rowling’s writing has not ceased. The unique, author-annotated edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” fetched a record price of $228,000 at the auction held at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Tuesday.
The Guardian have listed the annotations made by the various authors:
Amsterdam to Wolf Hall, Booker winners and bestsellers – authors including JK Rowling, Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman, Nick Hornby and Ian McEwan annotate their own first editions. The books will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next week in aid of English PEN.
Niq Mhlongo fans have waited for a while for his third novel and here it finally is – Way Back Home.
Mhlongo received acclaim for his previous novels, Dog Eat Dog and After Tears, in South Africa and abroad and was hailed as a great new voice of South African writing – the literary version of the kwaito generation, if you will. This is because the protagonists in those novels were young black men who represented a social paradox. On one hand there was early post-apartheid euphoria imbued with the perfume of liberation and the promise of wealth and improved social standing, while on the other these young men were members of a group that carried the stigma of being responsible for crime, violence, absent-fatherhood, laziness and lack of employability. With acerbic humour, Niq writes about how these men navigate their way through their young lives in the midst of these bewildering circumstances. He doesn’t create romantic heroes; he gives the reader human beings in all their messy colourfulness.
McGregor will be abuzz from 21 to 23 June with poetry readings, discussions, excursions, film screenings, art exhibitions and music as this Western Cape town’s Poetry Festival is celebrated.
The late author Chinua Achebe is to be buried today on his family compound in the town of Ogidi, after his remains arrived in his home country, Nigeria, on Tuesday.
Verdict: carrot
Download this eBook at LittleWhiteBakkie.com
Download this eBook at LittleWhiteBakkie.com
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