Lupita Nyong’o’s take on Chimamanda’s Americanah for HBO will help Hollywood’s Africa blind spot

The long-awaited on-screen adaptation of Chimamanda’s bestseller, Americanah, is finally coming to life as a ten-episode HBO series starring Lupita Nyong’o and directed by Danai Gurira.

The duo of Nyong’o and Gurira have become a formidable force in Hollywood when it comes to their devotion to telling authentic African stories and especially the stories of women. These days, of course, they’re both best known for their lead roles in 2018 blockbuster Black Panther set in the Marvel-created African country of Wakanda.

Americanah has been a passion project for Nyong’o, the Kenyan-born Oscar winner, who optioned the rights in 2014 after falling in love with the novel. Zimbabwean-American Gurira, too on her part, is no stranger to adapting African stories. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her Broadway show, Eclipsed, that tells the story of war in Liberia from women’s point of view.

Americanah is the story of Ifemelu a young, courageous woman raised in Nigeria who as a teenager falls in love with her classmate Obinze. They each depart for the West during a repressive time of military rule in the country with Ifemelu going to the US and Obinze to London. Both suffer their individual struggles as immigrants. Despite her academic success, life in the US forces Ifemelu to grapple for the first time with what it means to be black.

Thematically, the story of Ifemelu and Obinze is as true an African story today as it was in the times of repressive military rule in Nigeria that it was set in. Nigeria still continues to see a massive outflow of people with the rising migration of even comfortable middle-class Nigerians, as the country fails to live up to their expectations. In the global context of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the West, backed by right-wing, populist leaders in power, it can be expected that a challenging undocumented life in the West awaits some of those who leave.

To read the full article on Quartz Africa, click here.

Kenyan writer and human rights activist, Margaret Ogola, honored with a Google Doodle

Kenyans of a certain age will immediately recall her name as her best known novel, The River and the Source, was required reading for the high school leaving national examinations (KCSE) from 1999 to 2004.

The line by the main protagonist’s father, Chief Odero, the father of Akoko “A home without daughters is like a spring without a source” was a fitting one for a book that placed the stories of the lives of three generations of women at its center.

This book that embraced the spirit of strong African women, while immersing and celebrating Luo culture and tradition, from pre to postcolonial times, won the 1995 Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, Best First Book, Africa region.

To access the full article on Quartz, click here.

Arriving in Somaliland

I woke up around 5am in Addis - had a hurried breakfast then left for 8:30am flight to Hargeisa. I got to the airport and most of the women were in full hijabs. I was wearing diracs that I had bought from a kind Somalilander woman in Eastleigh called Fardowsa. She had assured me that this would be appropriate dress code for Hargeisa. Now that I was standing at the airport in a sea of women in full hijabs I began to get nervous that perhaps I had not bought appropriate clothing for my trip. 

We got on the plane. First and business class was all white people. I figured out they must all be working for development agencies. Economy class was the rest of us:-) We got to Hargeisa around 1pm. I arrived and met a really friendly French girl who was attending the festival. As we were chatting, we bumped into a very well-known Malawian professor of literature - he used to be a judge for the Caine Prize. I love literary festivals - you get to rub shoulders with the most fascinating people. I have found African writers to be the least pretentious people i've ever met. Maybe it's because as writers you might get fame, but very rarely have the fortune. I get the feeling that festivals with musicians or actresses would be more hierarchical - with the more famous artists not really mingling with "the watus." In literature festivals, all of you get to interact. As a new writer, I always feel so fortunate to be in the midst of people whose work I have admired for a long time and be sharing a beer or a rolex (egg rolled in chapatis,) and talking like old friends. Writers are also wacky - so I always feel quite at home at literature festivals, as I have always been a bit of an odd-ball.....and the conversations are the best!

The Malawian professor had arrived but all his luggage was lost. We got out of the airport and I remember wondering why there was no real customs check. We just landed, got our bags and left without anyone searching them. We got to the hotel -  a really lovely comfortable hotel. I slept for half an hour then went down to  the reception for lunch. I met some lovely Kenyan ladies who work at the Rift Valley Institute. My head scarf game was not yet on point. I had done a very traditional head scarf style that covered all my hair, my ears etc. I figured it was better to err on the side of too-conservative in the beginning then look around and see what everyone else was doing after a few days. Unfortunately I had tied my headscarf so tight that I couldn't hear anything well, my neck was hurting, breathing became a bit labored and I could not eat.....Rookie error. I had to excuse myself from lunch to go and tie it in a way that could allow me to function...

We left for the festival grounds. I stocked my books at the official festival bookshop. As I was walking around, I found another bookshop stall. The owner called me over, looked at my book and asked for 10 copies. She gave me $100 immediately for the books. I was really impressed. Most times at festivals, you stock your books and only get paid at the end for what sells. I had always heard that Somalis are the best people to do business with - and now I was seeing it. No haggling. No "come back after a few days we discuss", No "we will see" - Just "How much is it? Ok. Give me 10 copies - here is  your money." It has a lot to do with how tight family and clan relations are in Somali culture. A lot of Somali businesses are ran on trust rather than on official contracts.  People don't want to betray that trust because you not only bring shame on yourself, but shame on your family, your clan etc. It could explain the success of Somali money transfer businesses such as Dahabshill or Somali prowess in in international logistics e.g.  Salihiya cargo - that can get your stuff from locations the world-over to their warehouse in Nairobi. They are able to use the global Somali network of relatives to ensure logistics is flawless. The other thing about Somali businesses - especially retail - they are highly price competitive. When I went to South C to buy my diracs, I was so surprised to learn that each would cost me $3 for the fabric and $0.50 for stitching. I could not even negotiate. Where else are you going to buy a full outfit for KES 350? Only in Eastleigh..The customer service might not always be that great, but hey - many places have horrible customer service and still charge you an arm and a leg. 

I stayed on for a session on ancient manuscripts and a Somali play that I'm not quite sure I understood. It was in Somali.  I think it was about a fight between animals, but I could also just be making this up given how little I understood:-)

Everywhere I looked around at the festival, I saw the most beautiful women in the most amazing fabrics. Fardowsa had been right - my diracs would be quite at home here in Hargeysa.  I remember every single Somalilander I met saying "Thank you for coming to Somaliland." It just made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside that someone would thank me for coming to a festival I had been dying to attend ever since I first heard of it. 

No - thank you Somaliland and thank you Hargeysa International Book Fair for having me. 

Somaliland is not a fancy name for Somalia

Can you imagine the first time I learnt about Somaliland (and the fact that it wasn’t just a fancy name for Somalia) was at the end of 2014 when I was dating a Somali-British guy who had been born in Somaliland? All this time anytime I heard about Somaliland, I thought it was another name for Somalia. Similar to Cote d’ivoire = Ivory Coast or something like that.

Anyway fast forward a few years and now I was living life as a proper fiction novelist – traversing the African continent for book launches, literature festivals etc. I heard about the Hargeysa International Book Fair and how amazing it is and decided I have to get invited. I’m a bit of a stalker, an optimist and have wide networks -  so the time lag between me hearing of something and getting there is usually not that long:-). I know I am lucky and I never forget to appreciate it and be helpful to others whenever I can.

I got to the airport for my flight to Hargeisa and realized I had left my specs at home. This was not going to work out – it was one of the rare instances I was flying wearing contacts (dailies.) I paid my cab guy double fare for him to go back home and bring me the stuff I had forgotten on my bed. I got to the airport and I had so much wahala – I had my flight details sent to me but the flight details they had at the airport had the wrong name. My flight had unfortunately been booked under the name I commonly use – Ciku Kimeria – rather than my passport name. I had feared this and had reminded the organizers a few times, but it happens. It’s an honest mistake – people assume that my chosen name is also my “Government” name. I was desperate to get on that flight as I had heard there are not that many flights on that route. I pleaded with the airline people – please call the travel agent who booked the flight (as they had those details on their end.) On my end, I was desperately contacting the festival organizer. These were the least helpful airport people on earth. They did not seem to recognize the urgency of my issue. The lady was typing slowly, asking silly questions etc. then finally it happens, “Yeah. Your flight has left you!”

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggh

So I end up being sent to the Ethiopian Airlines office in the airport – they were even less helpful than this lady. “From this office we can only send emails – no calls”…Like….seriously?? So they could only send an email to the Ethiopian Airlines person in Hargeisa who had to change my details – then we wait – me chewing my nails, her filing hers (ok…just kidding, but she might as well have been doing that for how laissez-faire she was.) No response to the email. Finally I let her borrow MY cellphone for her to call their Hargeisa contact who would change my flight details. My flight had left at 1pm and all this foolishness was only resolved at 3pm. I was finally sorted out and booked on a 5:30pm flight to Hargeisa with an overnight stop in Addis.

I found mypal – James Murua – literature blogger extraordinaire also stuck at the airport. He had arrived in the morning for yet another flight to Hargeisa (also to attend the festival) and the airline had told him the flight had been cancelled. Not a small issue – his airline only had one flight a week to Hargeisa – meaning even if they bumped him to the next flight, he would miss the whole festival.

We did the only logical thing to do when you’re stuck at the airport and have nothing to do, but wait…we drank – 5 or so beers each – to lighten the load.

Finally managed to check in for the 5:30pm flight to Addis. We got to Addis at 8pm. There was an airport shuttle to the hotel I would be spending the night in – I sat and waited in this airport shuttle for 50 good minutes. By this point I was so tired and ready to get my own taxi to this hotel. I would have to leave the hotel at 5:45am for my next flight to Hargeisa and these people were wasting my precious sleeping time. At the hotel I quickly ate then went to the room to sleep. This was the coldest hotel room of my life in the global South. Actually I don’t think I have ever been in such a cold hotel room even in the North – because if it was winter, there would be a heater in the room. Ah – actually I’ve been in a colder room, but that was in the Bolivian desert. There was a good excuse for it to be cold. Hotel room in Addis – what’s your excuse?

I requested a blanket and waited another hour for it to come. I was so irritated by the time I slept..especially knowing I needed to be up in five and a half hours.