Having spent copious time with my mother, in my village, and having survived the chaos of Nigerian life (oil subsidy removal and all other idiocies), I'm happy be back to my workplace in the West. I loved being with my people; I didn't like the pain and misery they still go through. Well, I'm happy to report on some of the intellectual things going on in the African world. Here is a review of Zakes Mda's memoir, "SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: Memoirs of an Outsider," by Rob Nixon:
A sample:
"The lesson he learns has ramifications that carry well beyond his personal story: how easy it is for a successful, mid-career artist to lapse into the role of professional opinion maker and cosmopolitan partygoer. In the end, Mda resists the fatal temptations of the limelight. Tiring of the deadening dishonesties that pollute official discourse among A.N.C. apparatchiks, he realizes that creativity and probity are less in demand than sycophancy. And so he trades hectic Johannesburg for American academia, where he can better sustain the anonymity and inventive autonomy that feed his talent."
ENJOY
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