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I am not a writer but I write because you don't need a license to write. You write and gbam! you are a writer. I hate to brag; The Washington Post published me once. 100 words. It was less, after they'd edited my fantastic tale. I was over the moon. Literally. And figuratively.
In those days, the Post would invite the reader to write something personal. If it suits the Post's fancy, it would be published on a Sunday along with a picture (yes, a Post photographer actually comes to you, takes a billion pictures, and the one you hate the most is used).🤣
For the picture, I wore a tie dye shirt that reeked of suffering. I held my kids, African grateful to America for saving me from Africa. Truth is, when I left Nigeria I left heaven for a former heaven that had been paved into hell. Mississippi was not the America of my dreams.🚶🏿♂️
Today, much of contemporary African writing is a mean hustle by the self-serving wannabe elite. Many African writers, should be hauled before a Truth Commission and made to apologize profusely for all the lies they have told against Africa for fame and fortune. We are ingrates.
Truth is, I knew the Post would publish my piece. Why? I started my fable thusly: "Many moons ago..," and ended with a weepy expression of gratitude to America for what, I don't know. Africa as the exotic other, America as the savior of the cute African. The Post loved it.
I have since written a few other pieces to great and enthusiastic reception by Western editors enthralled by my "enthusiastic" prose. There are days I hate “African writing”, it is so phony, many times.
Many American publishers seem fascinated by the bullshit of "aliens" who come from places where the natives measure time in moons, go to the river to bathe and shit. I don't know why moons appear a lot in my narrative, in real life the moon holds no special fascination for me,
Except for a brief stint in my ancestral village during the Nigerian civil war, I lived in the cities of Nigeria most of my life: I don't remember the moon much, the cities are very “civilized”, there's a lot of smog and so I am proud to say that I did not see any pristine moon.
About wild animals, I had an uncle we called Elephant and there was this other uncle who lived in the forests of a place called Omolege, who used to bring us meat he claimed was from an elephant. Our mother Izuma would cook the hide for hours, and offer it to us kids.
The hide was thick and not as tender as a stone, you could chew that sucker for months and we did. I digress, excuse me. I believe I did see an elephant in a zoo in Ibadan or Benin City in the early 70's.
There are unreliable reports that the elephant was converted to dinner by irate zookeepers who had not been paid for months. Or maybe that was the Zoo in Washington DC, they have had issues with being paid over there, the federal government shutdown and whatnot, dunno jor.
Why do we write these things? Well, every African writer will deny this in public but will tell you privately that his or her dream is to be published by a Western outfit, journal, newspaper, publishing house, etc. - Guernica, Eclectica, The New Yorker, The New York Times, etc.
Our elders say you have not arrived until you have been published by Guernica. An email acceptance is usually cause for raucous joy. Our star writers would never be seen dead writing in a Nigerian newspaper; that would sully their brand, who does that? Do you blame them though?
Nigeria is undergoing a crisis in its publishing industry. The quality is suspect and ambitious writers go to more robust institutions in the West where your work is guaranteed to be raked through the coals by a beady-eyed eagle of an editor and at times subjected to peer review.
In Babylon, their BS factor is low. I once submitted a piece for Guernica, my experience was hellish; the editing was relentless, the editor politely but firmly asked me to substantiate assertions and claims in my essay, who does that? They could tell my BS factor was high.🤣
It was a lot of work getting published over there. I made a mental note never to return to Guernica to write again, ever. Nonsense. Why, outside of Molara Wood and NEXT and Farafina, no Nigerian editor has ever as much as edited a letter in my pieces. It is all cut-and-paste.
What is my point? I don't know. I am just rambling, bored to my gills in this space from hell and writing whatever comes to my head. I crave elephant ponmo. Literature is dead. Long live Twitter and Facebook. Good night.
