How long is a longlist ? How many other books are also on it ? This I have no idea of, I am sorry.
What is the Commonwealth Book Prize ? It is a prize given for the best first novel published in the year preceding the current prize. A Conference in Ennui was my first novel, it has been named as a possible winner, and to me that has been quite exciting.
What is the Commonwealth ? Erm..., don't move an inch friend, a doctor should be on his way very soon.
Right, I will now tell you a bit about the novel which I am afraid is yet available outside Africa only from from Lulu Press , http://tinyurl.com/7vfcpas ' .Previous to this book, I'd had short story collections, poetry and drama published. I had even written books on such diverse topics as software engineering, health and well being as well as a couple of other topics . All these genres as you know, have their different requirements and characteristics. In creative writing, a short story for example needs to lift off and deliver the goodies within a few pages. It is a difficult genre ,but really the short story is my forte. I love the challenge of writing a good short story. When writing poetry on the other hand, not only is there the need, the desire to make your words transform into images in the reader's mind ; in addition these images ought to be handed in like a jigsaw puzzle box for the reader to assemble by themselves,I think . Never been my preferred type of writing. As for drama, those images need also breathe,to walk around, to have distinct attitudes which ought to naturally reveal in the way they speak and interact with one another. All of these genres do unfortunately also have unwritten rules which largely derive from the attention span of a typical audience , which is often rather too short.Phew ! Writing does is really hard work, isn't it ?
Okay, stick to writing novels then. With a novel, you have greater latitude for expression, I think ; you can make the timeframe a few hours or you can make it a million years. You can make your story visit all the countries in the world and go back and do it all over again,this time stopping for dinner in every one of them. Looks therefore that the length of a novel would then mostly depends on how much of writing stamina the writer has...and well, it does depend too on whether the story is interesting enough to hold the interest of the reader. That doesn't sound too unreasonable does it ?
Even though it went through a gestation period of nearly fifteen years , I wrote A Conference in Ennui within three months - all four hundred pages of the book . People who have read my short stories will probably recognise some of the characters and situations in the book , despite that names have been changed.In any case, the style is largely experimental : fusioning the powerful burst of the short story and the mellowness of narrative poetry , into as much drama as can be safely trapped between the two covers of a book . In other words, I had set out to write a book which I hoped should read somewhat like mainlining caffeine; however that ought to feels. I do think I managed to achieve something like that - but then judges always have their individual preferences.
First novels are usually docile animals : often too carefully and too safely crafted, giving the general impression that their authors never seem to have enjoyed writing them. Similarly, contemporary African writings have been notoriously plagued by a care for strict observance of good grammar and the desperate need to euphemenise situations for the pupose of being able to gain a lucrative entry into school reading lists. This is well understood , since the educational market has always been the primary for nearly all African writings ; and this may be why most contemporary new African authors strive to write in the style similar to that of Nobel Prize winner,Wole Soyinka and to Chinua Achebe , both of whom have long been successful supplier of educational books since the 60s . The predictable result has been new books which lack character, lack originality and therefore eventually lack a market. Simply put, I guess readers who buy Wole Soyinka know why they buy him, and certainly do not want to buy someone who writes "like" Wole Soyinka.
So how is my book different then ? Heck, I thoroughly enjoyed writing this slightly reckless book. As a first novel,I think I was bold enough to make a departure from the safe and careful as well to create some originality - especially in the surreal comedic style which is common to much of my previous short stories and poetry. This book does actually stick a finger in the face of censorship - in every way. The prose, roundly described as a bit too colorful, is really in balance with the general theme of the story ,and its artistic terrain ; which reveals as a minefield of anger, love, hope, hopelessness , old school music , cannabis and schizophrenia.
Let me by an illustration introduce you to one of the characters in the novel. I like this guy a lot. His name is Herbie Wayne and he is at this moment connecting with God :
The large room lit by a single conical black-light lamp, vibrated with the frantic throb of bass and even a more disturbing clatter of frenetic vocals. Public Enemy sang "Fight the Power" from the quadraphonic sound system with a huge speaker located at each corner of the cluttered room. On the wall, a huge glow-in-the dark poster displayed a giant fist clutching a screwdriver. The caption under it: Screw the System.
On the large unmade double bed lay Herbie, naked except for faded jeans trousers, frayed to mere strings at the knees; on the floor an ash-caked little saucer holding the dead remains of a ganja cigar. Herbie lay unmoving, unhearing, unfeeling, and unaware of anything else other than the rumbling thump of his heart - like the bass drum in a Fela ensemble. And that noise filled his entire world.
Beside the saucer was an open pamphlet, a book by a poet called Shango Baku, its title: On The Dread Level. Alongside that were two bibles, one bookmarked at the Psalms by a strip of cardboard. Much of the book of Psalms on the other Bible was pretty gone, the pages having been used to roll his ganja cigars. According to Herbie's friend, Maceo, this was the ultimate high - smoking the Holy Weed with the Holy Book. In fact it wasn't until he had met Maceo that Herbie started to believe that smoking weed could endear you to a sane God, and he had been happy enough to think otherwise. Maceo had assured him in any case; that this was the surest fine way to connect firmly with the Most High God within a few minutes. The previous day had been a very busy one for making connections: Herbie had smoked the entire Psalm 119.
Irie.
Okay, that's it folks. Could this book finally become the winning pick ? Erm..., the Commonwelth Book Prize ,does appear to be a competition whose prestige is sustained by the promotion of the safe and uncontroversial; and I am quite surprised that A Conference in Ennui made it this far. But as they say , miracles do happen. Till the end of the judges' conference then......ennui.
Source: http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=175042
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