A star-translator of Nobel winner, Munro, emerges in Japan

Japanese translator, Yumiko Kotake, 59, and Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 winner, Canadian, Alice Munro have things in common.

With both having raised three children, each, and dedicate much time and passion to children literature, the translator, according to The Japan News monitored online, has been lifting the common factors higher.

Yumiko Kotake

Latest of the four works of Munro translated into Japanese by Kotake is no other than the popular Canadian’s short-story collection Dear Life. More interesting, the Japanese version was published on December. 10, the same day the Swedish Academy formally presented the Nobel Prize to Munro.

Kotake said, “I was motivated by beginner’s luck.” Munro’s works, she noted,  contain “descriptions of mundane everyday lives, along with a wistfulness and an uplifting power that can be vividly felt. 

That’s what’s so appealing about this book.” 

In 1995, she made her debut as a translator at age 41.

Man Booker Prize winner, Catton, honoured again

Winner of The Man Booker Prize 2013, Eleanor Catton won’t just stop winning; a leading newspaper in her country has just named her the Herald's New Zealander of the Year.

Eleanor Catton

But Catton, who was named along with golfer Lydia Ko and teen singer Lorde was still unprepared for fame, the newspapers reports.

"The odd thing about suddenly being in the public eye is that the way you interact with the world is the same, but people are treating you very differently," Catton told The New Zealand Herald.

At 26, Catton was the youngest ever winner of the prestige Man Booker Prize and a second New Zealander to win the prize, after Keri Hulme for her novel The Bone People in 1985. 

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In October, Catton's second novel, a historical murder mystery The Luminaries, 830-page book, set during the West Coast gold picked Man Boker Prize in Britain.

North Korean ambassador to UNESCO recalled over rising political tension at home

A File picture released for Sunday’s preparation of the second anniversary of the selection of Kim Jong-un as North Korea’s new leader. (EPA Photo/KCNA

North Korea’s deputy ambassador to UNESCO Hong Yong returned home today after being recalled by the communist country’s leader Kim Jong-un, a report said.

The sudden recall of the ambassador, sources disclosed, was part of a purge spurred by the execution of the Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was seen as North’s unofficial number two and the leader’s political mentor. He was put to death on December 12 during an array of charges including treason and corruption.

Hong Yong, the North Korean’s deputy permanent delegate to UNESCO, and his wife were spotted at Beijing airport on Monday before taking the flight to Pyongyang, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

The shock purge has been noted by observers as the biggest political upheaval since the young ruler took power after the death of his father and the former leader, Kim Jong-il, two years ago.

Nobel laureate, Soyinka loses daughter

One of Prof Wole Soyinka’s children, Iyetade, has died in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria, an online media group, Sahara Reporters reports.

The report says the death was disclosed by a culture activist and journalist, Mr Jahman Anikulapo, who is one of aides to the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Prof. Soyinka.

Prof Wole Soyinka

Iyetade died at the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital where she was being treated for an undisclosed ailment. She was born June 6, 1965.

The statement noted that the late Iyetade Soyinka was a student at the Staff School and Queens School, Ibadan before she studied Medicine at the University of Ibadan (UI).

Mr. Anikulapo’s statement described the deceased as “affable, intelligent and sometimes capricious,” adding that she “struggled with her health in recent years.” Despite her health woes, the late Iyetade Soyinka “greeted every day with a smile and doted on her two children.”

The statement, which was issued on behalf of the deceased’s family, revealed that Ms. Soyinka “took ill quite suddenly and passed away while being treated at UCH, Ibadan.

“Iyetade leaves behind two children, both parents, numerous siblings, nieces and nephews.” 

Race for 2014 Africa Movie Academy Awards begins

With a Call for Entries, the race for Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) 2014 coveted prizes in  feature, short and documentary works has started.

The organizers, led by its Nigerian founder and CEO, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, states that the deadline for submissions is 15 January 2014.

CEO, AMAAA, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe.

According to a press statement, nominations will be announced in the first week of March, 2014.

Genres for AMAA include feature length films, shorts and documentary entries with features that may not exceed 120 minutes and shorts should not be longer than 40 minutes.

Anyiam-Osigwe notes that 2013 “has been an exciting year for African cinema as many big budget productions have been produced on the continent and distribution is becoming more accessible to African films.”

The primary aim of AMAA, the organisers states, is to facilitate the development and showcase the social relevance of African Film and Cinema. 

100 new list of monuments for Nigeria’s centenary celebration

A UNESCO World Heritage site, Sukur Kingdom, Mandara Mountains in Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria 

In stressing the role of heritage in nation building, a government agency in Nigeria, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) has revealed plans to list new 100 sites as national monuments as part of the country’s centenary celebration next year.

Nigeria was widely believed to have emerged as a nation when the British colonial rule amalgamated the Southern and Northern protectorates in 1914.

The Director-General of NCMM, Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman, yesterday, in Abuja disclosed the plans while receiving museum curators and culture officers of Adamawa, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi and Borno. The guests  were on a courtesy visit to congratulate Usman on his tenure extension for another four years by President Goodluck Jonathan.   

Usman stated: “100 heritage sites have been identified as National Monuments across the country especially those related to the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates, our colonial past and other things that relates to Nigerianess.”

The D-G added that the 100 sites have been documented and supported by “stakeholder’s consultation.”  He also assured that “the communities where the sites are located have been contacted and we are hopeful that after giving out notices in newspapers which is part of the conditions to be fulfilled, then it will be declared.”

In Lagos, 'Afro Art Beat' rebrands Ghariokwu, opens new space

By Tajudeen Sowole

THOUGH rarely exhibited, Lemi Ghariokwu is the first artist of a new art space that is currently attempting to redefine artist-art gallery relationship, using his new form Afro Art Beat as a pedestal.

Shortly before the new art space, Red Door Gallery’s opening of Ghariokwu’s solo show titled, Po-Lemi-Cs, which continues till January 15, 2014 - the aura of freshness radiates and welcomes. This afternoon, Ghariokwu’s designer, portraitist and satirist identity, boosted by his new Afro Art Beat, emboss from the white walls of Red Doors, adding a creative flavor to the serenity of the host community in Bishop Oluwole, Victoria Island, Lagos.

  With his exploit abroad in the early years of the last decade, and his pop art style that highlights icons as well as a well-established satirist identity, Ghariokwu’s art has a distinct form from the crowd of paint on canvas Lagos artists. After emerging as the star of a 34 international contemporary artists group exhibition, Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, at Museum of Contemporary Art, New York in 2003 and adding a successful solo tour of the US a year later, Ghariokwu’s art, surprisingly, remained quiet on the mainstream Nigerian art space. 

Lemi Ghariokwu’s Afro Art Beat rendition of Nelson Mandela

And his return, almost four years after as one of the three artists who had solo, each in the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos’ DEMOCRAZY, 3 Solo Exhibitions and a Publication, seemed to have done little in reconnecting the artist’s status with the huge international presence he achieved in 2003.

  Buried in the quietness of Ghariokwu’s art, however, is a strong trajectory, which knowledgeable art connoisseurs and enthusiasts appreciate.  For example, art historians would not ignore Ghariokwu’s U.S and the U.K tour from the sudden post-Fela interest by the west, which arguably, spurred the production of a musical, Fela! on Broadway. The musical has given Africa a major presence in one of the world’s most prestigious entertainment outlets, the Broadway. In fact, the producer of the Fela on Broadway musical, Steve Hendel writes the Foreword of Po-Lemi-Cs’ catalogue.

  Hendel writes, “no one personifies the visual arts behind Fela’s music as Ghariokwu.”  The artist, he argues, “has become a Living Legend” having documented the late Afro beat musician for over two decades of the entire musical career of the late musician.

 For the artist’s current exhibition, Po-Lemi-Cs, the Bola Asiru-led Red Door Gallery has invested in a ticking African-Andy Warhol that could explode onto the world art market soon.  On the ground floor of the gallery, the artist continues his portraitures of iconic Africans as Late South African leader Nelson Mandela and controversial Biafran warlord, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu join the artist’s mentor, Fela.

  Expressed in pop art-like, the portraits, which could come under a style otherwise known as afro pop art, strengthens Ghariokwu’s re-branding. Within the contemporaneity of his expression, he now coins his art “Afro Art Beat”.  He notes that art can no longer afford to be silent, and his new coining sets the template for contributive artistic content in contemporary African art. “Nigerian visual art is too quiet. We can’t confine art to ‘art for art’s sake’ or decorative value,” he warns. “So, for me, it’s no longer Afro pop art, but Afro art beat.”

  And having imbibed the culture of protest art from his work relationship with Fela, his Po Lemic-Cs, a coin from the word that connotes contention and argument, is the exhibition an extension of radical expression?  Not exactly, he explains. “I am using polemic in a positive way, to promote freedom of expression.”

 As a subject in contextual art, Fela is inexhaustible, so suggests a collage of old newspaper cuttings and drawings titled, Felarama, a landscape size piece mounted at the entrance of the gallery.

The piece brings back the memories of Fela’s troubled years with the Nigerian military regimes as well as the musician’s attempt at politics as symbolised by YAP., Ghariokwu says, the work represents “the drama in Fela’s life.” 

At this period in of Nigeria’s volatile nationhood, when the people are sharply divided along ethnic lines, the conspicuity of Ojukwu’s portrait at the gallery’s entrance, strikes a chord.

 Whoever argues that the Biafran warlord symbolises ethnic divisionism would change such thought seeing Ghariokwu’s work of the Ikemba.

  
The artist digs into archive and gets a quote of Ojukwu: ‘It’s only those who have not been involved in a war that will always push war as the first solution to any problem.’The artist digs into archive and gets a quote of Ojukwu: ‘It’s only those who have not been involved in a war that will always push war as the first solution to any problem.’ 

Fela Kuti, from the new art form of Lemi Ghariokwu’s Afro Art Beat.

And for those who are currently threatening fire and brimstone if result of 2015 presidential election does not favour their geopolitical zone, Ojukwu warns: ‘War does not solve, it cowers, but the problem remains.’

  But as an art piece, the Ojukwu portrait may have Ghariokwu’s depiction of the Ikemba in grey cap questioned by Igbo traditionalists who could demand the artist’s explanation of not using red cap. 

     

  From the sacrificial life of Mandela comes the artist’s view of the true worth of leadership in a quote from the late South African leader. ‘When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace.’ Apparently a pre-Robben Island face, the Ghariokwu’s portrait of Madiba suggests that even in the heat of the struggle against apartheid regime, the South African icon was hopeful of triumph.

  The satirist in Gharokwu roves over other works such as the retrospectives of late Fela’s album covers and some recent pieces that covertly highlight the political direction of Nigeria towards the controversial National Confab and 2015 general elections.

In the Nigerian art environment where new masters of Ghariokwu’s generation require constant exposure to challenge the dominance of the old masters, the approach has to be more aggressive. The artist who had a solo Art’s Own Kind at Didi Museum few months ago recalls that “Fela used to have, sometimes, up to four albums released in one year”. He therefore likes to apply similar approach to his art exhibition profile.

The director of Red Door Gallery, Asiru explains that the new facility is focusing on artists with “have great potential, but who are less exposed to the public.”

More importantly, Red Door, Asiru discloses, is not just providing spaces for artists, but also fully partnering artists in the process of career building  such as representing them across the board, in Nigeria and abroad. “Red Door has 12 artists already that we are representing, both here and abroad.” The Gallery’s South Africa branch, he adds, “is in progress with our partner over there.”

Lemi Ghariokwu

He hopes that the gallery’s partnership with Nigerian artists will bring about the needed working environment for artists to concentrate on their studio and leave marketing and promotion to professionals who know the business of art. This much, Asiru assures, is already in place with opportunities “such as residency and studio space for artists within the gallery complex.”

 Ghariokwu’s international status include several corporate brandings, one of which was his commission work for a branded concert Jump n’ Funk sponsored by sport kit giant Puma.

He has also been awarded the prestigious honour of the membership of Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

  
High profile collectors of the artist include U.S.-based Judith Roschild Foundation and MoMA.

Omotoso, Bulawayo on Longlist of nine for Etisalat Literature Prize

Described as the first pan-Afrian prize, the Etisalat Prize for Literature has released its Longlist.

Launched in June 2013 with the aim of becoming "one of the most prestigious literature prizes for African fiction, it is open solely to debut fiction writers of African citizenship."

The Long list:
Bomboy  – Yewande Omotoso (Modjaji Publishers)
Daughters Who Walk This Path  – Yejide Kilanko (Penguin Books Canada)
Finding Soutbek – Karen Jennings (Holland Park Press)
Sarah House – Ifeanyi Ajaegbo  (Bookcraft Ltd)
The Great Agony And Pure Laughter Of The Gods – Jamala Safari (Random House Struik)
The Spider King’s Daughter – Chibundu Onuzo (Faber & Faber)
The Spiral House – Claire Robertson (Random House Struik)
The Whispering Trees – Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (Parresia Publishers)
We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo (Little, Brown and Company)


The judges include Prof Pumla Dineo Gqola,  at the University of Witwaterstrand as chair; Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Managing Editor of Kwani Trust Billy Kahora.

According to Etisalat, a short list of three novels comes at a retreat in Morocco next month, to be followed by purchase of 1,000 copies of their books by Etisalat. In addition, the three writers go on a multi-city sponsored tour, also in January.

The overall winner will be announced at the Etisalat Prize for Literature Award Ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria on Sunday, February 23, 2014.

Clark in 'Living Legends' documentary, as project heads for Centenary celebration

By Tajudeen Sowole

WITH the Living Legends Art documentary project showing strongly in the country’s art scene, plans are afoot for its positive involvement in the Nigeria centenary, next year.

Only recently, the project had Prof. John Pepper Clark as its fifth sitter. The initiator, Olu Ajayi, disclosed the broad plans of the projectfew days after Clark sat before painters and sculptors at Didi Museum, Victoria Island, Lagos.

His hope is that before long, the first volume of a Living Legends’ compendium is published to contribute to the Nigeria centenary, next year. 

The project debuted in 2007 with Prof. Wole Soyinka as the first sitter. He sat before nearly 20 artists inside the Aina Onabolu Building, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. 

Also, a few months ago, artists from Lagos joined their counterparts in Benin for a painting and sculpturing session with the Oba of Benin, Omonoba Erediauwa II, inside his palace.

Sitter, Prof J.P Clark (left) and sculptor, Aseola Balogun during the Living Legends Art recording.

Grillo and Bruce Onobrakpeya were other sitters that have been documented by artists since the project started.   

  At the J.P Clark edition of the Living Legends, artists who joined Ajayi included Duke Asidere, Aladegbongbe Aderinsoye, Balogun Adeola, Wallace Ejoh, Emmanuel Isiuwe, Lekan Onabanjo, Ibe Ananaba, Sade Thompson, Emmanuel Irokunulo, Odun Orimolade and Kilani Abass. 

  Supervisors and historians as well as guests present included Kolade Oshinowo. Prof Peju Layiwola, Olatunji Sotimirin, Nengi Omuku and Yusuf Grillo.

   Also present were art patrons Sammy Olagbaju, Nero Asebelua, Mr. and Mrs. Okunsanya and the host, chief Newton Jibunoh.

  The Living Legends Art is designed to feature artists whose practice complements the status of the sitters.

   According to Ajayi, so far, that crucial aspect of the project has been sustained since 2007. The artists, he argued are among the best in the country. “Most of the artists in the project, so far, would make top 50 of Nigerian artists, if there should be such ratings.” 

   Some of the artists who had participated in the past four editions included Sam Ovraiti, Abiodun Olaku, Edosa Ogiugo, Asidere, Ben Osaghae and Segun Adejumo.

 One hundred years history of amalgamation of diverse ethnic and religious groups into what is known as Nigeria of today cannot be written without some individuals, Ajayi noted. Some of these people who have contributed immensely to the development of the country – and are still alive — he explained are the focus of the project.

   Just as the Grillo, Onobrakpeya and His Royal Highness Erediauwa editions were organised to coincide with the 74th, 80th and 90th birthday celebrations of the sitters, Clark also had his own as part of his 80th birthday.

    The artists involved in the Onobrakpeya edition were Ukhueduan Tom, Uche Nwosu, Isiuwe Angela, Irokanulo, Tunde Soyinka, Maurice Onyeriodo, Nmesirionye Joshua, Juliet Ezenwa Maja-Pearce, Udondian Victoria, Okujeni Tony, Ovraiti, Gerry Nnubia, Onabayo and Ajayi.
  

(Sitting) Nero Asebelua, Kolade Oshinowo, Newton Jibunoh, Prof J.P Clark, Prof Yusuf Grillo and Prof Peju Layiwola with the participating artists.

Also present at were veteran photographer J.D. Okhai Ojeikhere, and chairman, Visual Arts Society of Nigeria (VASON), Olagbaju.

   For the Grillo edition, under the supervision of architect, Prof. David Aradeon, four artists were involved: Ajayi, Ovraiti, Orimolade, Agose, Ejoh and Osazuwa Osagie as well as new entrants, Kelechi Amadi-Obi, Ibe Ananaba, Kingsley Braimoh, Joshua Nmesirionye, Awoyemi Ajibade and Edward Samuel.

   But in Nigeria where it takes bread and butter or ‘cash and carry’ to earn honours, the Living Legends Art project seems to be scratching for real and genuine achievers, whose identities are devoid of dark spots. Ajayi, however, says the project is not necessarily ‘searching for saints’, and that  “we have documented just five people shows that the criteria for selection is strict.”

The Nigeria centenary, he added, is just a stop over as the project continues thereafter with the “ultimate goal of setting up a Legends Portrait Gallery.

So far, the acceptance, he enthused, has grown, attracting more people, even beyond Nigeria. Next on the list, he disclosed, “are former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Anan and former scribe of the Commonwealth Nations, Emeka Anyaoku.”    

As a renowned art teacher, Grillo seems to have developed strong passion for the project; he has been present in all the editions recorded in Lagos. In fact, each edition comes with art classroom or studio nostalgia.

For example, during his own edition, he stated: "It was a rejuvenating experience." He recalled how the first shoot reawakened his interest in studio work. "I knew it was going to send me straight back to the studio” such that he could not resist getting a charcoal “from Olaku, which I eventually used when I got home."

For being a visual arts project, and perhaps, unavoidably noiseless, Living Legends comes with the challenge of attracting corporate sponsorship.

 Over the decades, the Nigerian art environment has lost the value placed on portraiture, either in painting, sculpture or photography.

   Official portraits of statesmen, professionals particularly in paintings, are hardly given priority as it used to be. But the Ajayi-led project, which is capable of resurrecting the culture in a more elaborate scope, needs the support of the corporate Nigerian.

Ajayi lamented the difficulties in “getting the attention of well-placed individual and corporate groups to see the vision in the project.”

  
Ahead of Clark’s sitting, Project Manager, Eki Eboigbe stressed that the selected personalities since 2007 fall within the criteria to justify the artists’ contextualisig of the documentary within art and literature. She said, “it’s about personalities, who have consistent records of positive impartation on the society are inducted and immortalized by living contemporary artist, using art to locate the intersection between fine art and literature.”

Clark and artists during the recording

She added, “document living icon project is a contingent of professional artist and scholars dedicated to rectifying the gap in the nation’s art history profile.”

Gradually making international presence, the documentary project had been taken to an event in South Africa few years ago.

Eboigbe recalled that it “contribution to the University of South Africa (UNISA) African speaks lecture series 2012.”

She stated that it was presented “in a conversation forum titled, Imaginaries, locating the intersections of fine art and literature.

The portraits of Soyinka from the Living Legends Art, she explained were used “to convey and express his person and ideas.” The collection, Eboigbe added, “was also showcased at Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in Abuja.”