Posts by Olufunke Ogundimu

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

February 22, 2019  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by José García Escobar, Marek Maj, and Olufunke Ogundimu

New Guatemalan publications, a feminist conference, as well as awards in translation feature in this week's literary updates!

This week brings notable translations of up-and-coming Guatemalan authors, an insightful conversation between two Nigerian writers, and the announcement of highly-regarded translation prizes in the UK. If you’ve been searching for exciting new writers and translators, look no further!

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large for Guatemala, reporting from Guatemala

In early December, Ugly Duckling Presse (UDP) put out No Budu Please, a selection of poems by the Guatemalan and Garifuna author Wingston González, translated by the Puerto Rican poet Urayoán Noel. No Budu, which has been favorably reviewed by Columbia Journal, Verse, and PANK, marks the first time Wingston’s work has been published in the United States. Additionally, Wingston’s book place of comfort has been incorporated into artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s performance and installation Heart of the Scarecrow, which will be on exhibit through March 9 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Across the pond, independent publishing house Charco Press is bringing another Guatemalan author into the English language. Celebrated short story writer Rodrigo Fuentes published a collection called Trucha panza arriba in Guatemala in 2017. Since then, the book has been reissued in Bolivia by Editorial El Cuervo and in Colombia by Laguna Libros. Trucha was even longlisted for the Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez. And as of February 7, thanks to researcher and translator Ellen Jones, Trucha is now available in English as Trout, Belly Up. You can read one of the stories from the collection in our Winter 2019 issue.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

November 2, 2018  |  in Dispatches, News  |  by Norman Erikson Pasaribu and Olufunke Ogundimu

This week, our Editors-At-Large from Nigeria and Indonesia tell us more about the latest in literary news.

 Join our Editors-at-Large as they reflect on this week’s most important literary news—and look ahead to exciting upcoming events! From Nigeria, Olufunke Ogundimu reports on festivals in Lagos and beyond. Norman Erikson Pasaribu, writing from Indonesia, discusses a renowned Toba Batak author and a promising young translator.

Olufunke Ogundimu, Editor-At-Large, reporting from Nigeria:

Autumn is the season of literary festivals in Nigeria, beginning in September with the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival, which aims to celebrate and increase access to arts and literature in northern Nigeria. October ushers in the Aké Arts and Book Festival and the Lagos International Poetry Festival, and the season ends in November with the Lagos Book and Arts Festival.

The theme of this year’s Aké Arts and Book Festival was “Fantastical Futures.” From October 25-28, visitors attended events, exhibitions, and conversations that focused largely on a re-imagined African future. The first two days of the festival were devoted to Project Inspire, an initiative that involved featured authors visiting schools to read to pupils and talk to them about books, reading, and careers in writing. The festival also hosted two panels in Yoruba and Igbo languages for the first time; in the past, panels were held in English only. The “Divinity and Spirituality in Igbo Tradition” panel discussed the demonization and criminalization of traditional practices in Igboland, while the Yoruba panel focused on “Entertainment, Education and Technology in the Mother Tongue.”

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His Defiance: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Struggle for an Independent African Literature

June 14, 2018  |  in Essays  |  by Olufunke Ogundimu

These words cannot just exist in a vacuum; they provoke reactions that demand political change.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was born 5 January, 1938 in Limuru, Kenya and is a perennial favourite for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ngũgĩ is at the forefront of a war of resistance regarding the use of language that has spanned many decades. He advocates that African writers write in their mother tongues, because he understands how integral language is to a culture and its identity. Since African literature is mostly written in languages of the minority, the language of the colonizers, Ngũgĩ asserts that this choice stifles the imagination of Africans and their propensity to be creative.

Nearly fifty years ago, Ngũgĩ wrote his first novel, Weep Not, Child (1964), the first written in English by an Eastern African. Ngaahika Ndeenda (1977), translated as I Will Marry When I Want, was co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii. It is a play that depicts the injustices and excesses of post-colonial Kenya. It was acted by “non-intellectuals” in an open-air theater at the Kamirithu Educational and Cultural Center, Limuru. Ngũgĩ’s Gikuyu play sought to bring the theatre closer to the masses and encourage the audience to interact with the play. The play appealed to a wide audience and, because of the resultant reaction by people, the Kenyan government threw Ngũgĩ in prison for a year.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

May 25, 2018  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by José García Escobar, Olufunke Ogundimu, and Rachael Pennington

International literary news for an international audience.

Another week has flown by and we’re back again with the most exciting news in world literature! This time our editors focus on Central America, Germany, and Spain. 

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America: 

Sadly, Centroamérica has been officially put on hold this year. After five years of unflagging work, the festival Centroamérica Cuenta, hosted each year across Nicaragua, has become the most significant and important literary gathering of the region, annually welcoming writers, journalists, filmmakers, editors, and translators from over thirty countries around the world. This year’s CC was scheduled to unfold May 21-25. However, since Nicaragua’s tense political situation that has taken the lives of so many civilians shows no signs of slowing down, the Centroamérica Cuenta committee has decided to suspend the festival until further notice.

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