Why I Write In Mother Tongue

I thought you might like to read the latest on Ngugi wa Thiong'o's take on Africans and their native languages.
This is a taste of Gregory Austin Nwakunor's report on the recently held conference in Port Harcourt. It was at the conference that Ngugi wa Thiong'o spoke:
"Since Ngugi was launched into literary consciousness in 1964 by the 'infantile' masterpiece, Weep Not Child, he has mature in his craft, growing from 'singular' to 'plurimental' heroism."
By the way, I am always fascinated by how Nigerian journalists make use of English. Does anyone understand what the above writer meant by infantile masterpiece? The last time I checked my dictionary infantile meant "very immature." Is Weep Not Child very immature? And what in Good Buka's name, is plurimental?

Enjoy if you can.

Sorry Chimamanda, We Need The Single Story Of Our Failures!

John Iteshi has an interesting take on Chimamanda's speech. Here's a scoop:
"I have painstakingly watched the beautifully delivered speech by Ms Chimamanda Adichie on “the Dangers of a Single Story”. The main point of her speech is that Europeans have mainly propagated a single story of Africa which is always about our poverty, wars and in short, all about negative things. She basically wants the rest of the world to also acknowledge good things about Africa, especially the fact that not everybody in Africa is starving."

Iteshi's is a radical and sincere analysis of the African condition and Chimamanda Adichie's speech.ENJOY!

Did Chimamanda Get the African Story Right?

Last week I posted the singularly beautiful talk delivered by our own brilliant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was titled: "The dangers of a Single Story." The following day I also posted what I thought was, or should be, seen as a counter to Chimamanda's Achebean single story: Chris Abani's muse on humanity. I love both speeches, and I am particularly proud of these giants of the reborn African literature.
One question remains to be answered. More than fifty years after the publication of Things Fall Apart, which did a great job in challenging the Western narrative of Africa, it would seem that we Africans still have the need to keep on begging the West to understand us. Do we really need the West to understand us more than we need to understand ourselves, one another? Do Nigerians understand one another? I don't have an answer to this. If anyone has, I would be more than pleased to learn from him/her.