A BIRTHDAY NIGHT OUT @ SOAS WITH THE CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING NOMINEES…
What a splendid way to spend your birthday – taking in a few readings and a discussion with five nominees from this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing. As I passed through the subterranean corridors of London University’s School of African, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in search Khalili lecture theatre the sound of drums transported me back the Adriano Adewale’s pandeiro class at a previous SOAS summer school. It felt good. Outside the theatre I was able to purchase a copy of the book we had come to discuss – The Daily Assortment Of Astonishing Things – and sip on a couple of glasses of red wine while awaiting the arrival of the writers and panel host Dr Gus Casely-Hayford. This was the first of a series of London based events aimed at connecting the writers with potential readers and there was a warm sense of anticipation in the room. Hearing people talk about the context and the process of how they work and experiences of writing is always illuminating.
Now in its 17th year, the Caine Prize for African Writing aims to bring African writing to a wider audience. It doesn’t get the props that the Booker or Whitbread get but the Caine Prize gives a much welcome helping hand to both known and emerging writers from Africa. Along with the book of short stories which they publish annually the Caine Prize deliver a series of events that successfully bring together readers and those writers who have made the shortlist for the prize of £10,000 plus a few other perks. The prize has alerted the publishing mainstream to talents like Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo (‘We Need New names’ was terrific!) and given readers like myself an enticing trail to follow.
The annual Caine Prize writers’ workshop moves from African nation to African nation and this year’s workshop took place on an exclusive game reserve in Zambia. It sounded amazing and in discussion we learn the workshop is the primary source of the stories in the anthology. The six short-listed writers on the panel at SOAS all read a modest passage from their own story and talked about their respective aims and the impact of their own environments, whether in Africa or the US. In the mix was Abdul Adan from Somalia/Kenya who wrote the offbeat ‘The Lifebloom Gift’; Lesley Nneka Arimah, a Nigerian writer living in Minneapolis who penned futuristic ‘What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky’; DC based Nigerian and 2014 Caine Prize winner Tope Folarin (Nigeria) who offered ‘Genesis’ – a tale based in Utah!; Zimbabwe’s Bongani Kona who is a journalist and editorial contributor to Chimurenga who dropped the deep ‘At your Requiem’ and finally, South African writer, filmmaker and photographer, Lidudumalingani, who conjured up ‘Memories We Lost’.
I’m still working my way through the array of short stories in The Daily Assortment Of Astonishing Things but the diverse reflections of those writers on the panel, whether still living on the continent or approaching life from a diasporic perspective, continue to resonate. Reading their stories informs and enhances the reader’s own world. They diffuse myths and stereotypes and offer insights and a touch of magic. Seek out the Caine prize anthologies and the works of previous winners – many of whom, prior to discovering these anthologies, I’d sadly never heard of!
STOP PRESS: Lidudumalingani wins seventeenth Caine Prize with “multi-layered, gracefully narrated story”.
The Daily Assortment Of Astonishing Things Caine Prize Anthology is published by New Internationalist in the UK and publishers in eight African countries including, Jacana Media (South Africa), Cassava Republic (Nigeria), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), Gadsen Publishers (Zambia), ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe) and Langaa (Cameroon).
When I came across a review copy of Kate Tempest’s debut novel in my local second hand bookshop I was both happy and nervous. I’ve long sung the praises of this South London poet having been mesmerised by the riveting delivery of her one woman play ‘Brand New Ancients’. Her self published book of poetry/CD – Everything Speaks In It’s Own Way – is little gem and the ‘Mouse In The Lion’s Hair’ is a poem that I love to bits. I am less of a fan of the Mercury nominated LP, ‘Everybody Down’, which she dropped via Ninja Tunes, but that’s just my finely tuned – sometimes wrong – musical sensibilities kicking in. ‘Everybody Down’ definitely has it’s moments and, in reality, I should be giving thanks that the LP and the live gigs have carried her words to audiences who would never have handed over a few quid to check a poetry reading.
‘Space Echo – The Mystery Behind the Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde Finally Revealed!’ is the latest offering from the most excellent Analog Africa imprint and it’s compiled by the Celeste / Matisposa Crew – a Lisbon Based Sound System, Mexico-based producer Deni Shain, and label founder Samy Ben Redjeb. When the first track kicked in on the hi-fi I wasn’t sure if the CD was fucked up and jumping… I stopped it, re-pressed play and turned up the volume. Wow… different stylee… and then the voice of Antonio Sanches, it has echoes raw Paranda, kicks in over a galloping riddim. All I knew of Cabo Verdean music was the smokey, melancholy vocals of the Barefoot Queen Of Morna – Cesaria Evora and what will filling my kitchen was from another dimension. 
Finally, a team of welders arrived to open the containers and the whole village waited impatiently. It is said that charismatic anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral ordered for the instruments to be distributed equally in places that had access to electricity, which placed them mainly in schools. This distribution was best thing that could have happened – keyboards found fertile grounds in the hands of curious children, born with an innate sense of rhythm who picked up the ready-to-use instruments. They modernised local rhythms such as Mornas, Coladeras and the highly danceable Funaná, which had been banned by the Portuguese colonial rulers until 1975 due to its sensuality! One of those kids was Paulino Vieira, who by the end of the 70s would become the country’s most important music arranger.
Coinciding with the Cosmic Sound Of Cabo Verde we have another Cabo Verdean classic. It also arrives courtesy of Analog Africa and ‘BITORI – Legend Of Funaná ‘ explores the sensual, forbidden music of these remote islands. Recorded in the Netherlands in 1997, this album features accordion master Victor Tavares aka ‘Bitori’ alongside singer Chando Graciosa and the flawless rhythm section of drummer Grace Evora and bass-man Danilo Tavares. This is roots music – the music of Cabo Verde’s so called “uneducated peasants” which became synonymous with the armed struggle for independence from their Portuguese colonial masters. While the Cosmic Sound album gave us a revised take on traditional Funaná this album gives us a taste of raw, passionate, undiluted Funaná where the music underpins lyrics rooted in the harsh daily lives of the working people of the the seemingly idyllic Cape Verde archipelago. During the 60s and early 70s singing these lyrics and playing the music of Funaná could get you arrested and tortured. It was 22 years after the islands gained independence from Portugal that Bitori’s album was first heard in the urban dancehalls of the Cape Verdean islands. Many of the songs became local classics and thanks to Analog Africa they finally get to travel to other people around the globe.
HAVING PICKED UP A SOME HEAVY BRUISING during a lively and most enlightening Chin Na session (Chin Na is basically the Art Of Seizing & controlling an opponent), that took place during our regular Sunday morning Da Xuan training, I found myself in need of some Dit Da Jau liniment and reflecting on the need to toughen up my wirey, ageing arms. Obviously within the Da Xuan school there are methods to do this but later that afternoon I also found myself perusing Dale Dugas’ excellent Fundamental Iron Body Skills: Tempering Body & Limbs With Ancient Methods. 
ancienttofuture.com 