ANA CONGRATULATES ANAELE IHUOMA, CHUKWUDI EZE AND OBINNA UDENWE ON BEING SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 NIGERIA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

By Wole Adedoyin (ANA PRO South)

Camillus Ukah, ANA President has congratulated the trio of Anaele Ihuoma from ANA Rivers Chukwudi Eze from ANA Abuja and Obinna Udenwe from ANA Ebonyi on being shortlisted for the 2021 Nigeria Prize for Literature and for making ANA proud.
Recently, 2021 Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist was presented by the Chairman, Panel of Judges for this year’s prize, Professor Toyin Jegede, who is also a professor of Literature in English at the University of Ibadan. Three names of ANA members in persons of Anaele Ihuoma Chukwudi Eze and Obinna Udenwe also found themselves on the list.
"Over the past few years there has been a concerted efforts by ANA under the leadership of Camillus Ukah to raise the profile of its members and we are confident that the success of the duo of Anaele Ihuoma from ANA Rivers, Chukwudi Eze from ANA Abuja and Obinna Udenwe from ANA Ebonyi will not only add to this, but might just be the inspiration someone needs to start writing today. We want to congratulate Anaele Ihuoma, Chukwudi Eze and Obinna Udenwe on their outstanding achievements, we are proud of them."
The trio of Anaele Ihuoma, Chukwudi Eze and Obinna Udenwa are also currently active in the activities of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) at both the national level and at their various chapters. Anaele Ihuoma is the immediate past National Auditor of ANA. Architect Chukwudi Eze is a strong member of ANA Abuja while Obinna Udenwe is a staunch member of ANA Ebonyi and a Committee member of ANA/AE-FUNAI International Conference and Creative Workshops. Udenwe served as the Resource Person/Coordinator of the Short Story Writing Workshop at the just concluded 2021 ANA/AE-FUNAI International Conference held at the Rasheed Abubakar Auditorium, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, Ebonyi State, between July 1 and 4, 2021 with the theme: RE-IMAGINING BELONGINESS IN 21ST CENTURY AFRICA.
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Camillus Ukah, ANA President finally described their selection as appropriate reward for their unrelenting efforts which will also serve as a source of encouragement for other ANA Members.

ABOUT ANAELE IHUOMA
Anaele Ihuoma has worked as a journalist, banker and teacher. His published poetry books include: Tongues of Triumph (2003), Song of the Threshing Floor (2006) and Song of the Swallow (2007). A fourth, Whispers of Angels, is currently published online while his play One Day with the Hounds came out early 2018. His short story collection The Sea Route to Señorita’s Heart is yet to be published. His poems and short stories have appeared in several publications including Fireflies, The Guardian, Thisday, Ebedi Review, Ana Review, Rivers of Treasure, The Mariner as well as Onomonresua, a tribute to mothers and motherhood.
Ihuoma has been a guest on “Bound Copies”, a literary programme of Garden City Radio, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and “Our Guest” on Radio Verité, Boston, Ma., USA, amongst others. His literary credits include: The Sparrow Poetry Prize in Nigeria, 2009; ANA Bayelsa Centenary Poetry Prize, 2014 and Goethe Institut Literary Prize, 2014.
Ihuoma has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) and M.A (Literature in English) both from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He currently teaches at the National Teachers Institute, Port Harcourt.
ABOUT CHUKWUDI EZE
Architect Chukwudi Eze graduated with triple-honours and a Phi-Beta-Kappa from Vassar College received the William Kinne Award during his master’s degree from Columbia University, New York and studied Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. He designed Obasanjo Presidential Library and was a design team member of the Enyimba City, Abia State. He is a member of Association of Nigerian Authors, the Canadian Authors Association and sits on the Advisory Board of Abuja Library Society. He has written five books; the most recent of which, The Return of Half-Something, was shortlisted for the 2018 ANA Literature Prize.

ABOUT OBINNA UDENWE
Obinna Udenwe is the award winning author of the conspiracy thriller, Satans & Shaitans, and the controversial church-erotica, Holy Sex.
Obinna has received trainings from the British Council, Nigeria and the US National Endowment for Democracy, after which he founded and managed a youth development initiative, Ugreen Foundation from 2007 to 2014, training young people on leadership, governance and democracy, and won the Nigerian National Top12 Awards in 2009, the African International Achievers Awards 2012, the State Literary Icon Award 2014 from the Ebonyi State Government and the ANA Prize for Prose Fiction 2015. In 2012 and 2013, Obinna Udenwe organized and facilitated the Youth Creativity Class program that trained over 50 young people on creative writing, leadership and public speaking, after which he collated and edited the anthology Voices From My Clan. He has also initiated, financed and facilitated numerous leadership development programs for young people of his state of Ebonyi.
In 2016 he won the inaugural edition of the South African award; The Short Story is Dead Prize. For three years he has edited the Ebedi Review – an in-house magazine of the Ebedi International Writers Residency, Nigeria. He is the Founding Editor for Essays/Reviews.
SHORT REVIEW OF IMMINENT RIVER
By Oladayo Jonathan , September 9, 2019
Imminent River by Anaele Ihuoma; Prima – Narrative Landscape Press, Lagos, Nigeria; 2018; 347pp
There is the compelling need for me to go back to the publishing of Alex Haley’s Roots in 1976 to find a book that bears comparison to Anaele Ihuoma’s debut novel Imminent River. Just as after hearing grandma’s tales, Haley traces his roots back to the adolescent Kunta Kinte who was kidnapped into slavery to America from West Africa in the 18th century, Anaele Ihuoma regales us with the intriguing story that goes way back to early 19th century West Africa. The soul of the tale is the old matriarch Daa-Mbiiway, the bearer of the formula to prolong life.
Ihuoma stresses from the beginning that Imminent River takes its roots from fact as he writes in the author’s note: “This story may be fiction, but it is built on, rather than merely imitating, real life. The grand matriarch of the epic, Daa-Mbiiway, is unashamedly a great maternal aunt of mine, by the same name although spelt (if it ever was), Daa Mbiwe. One of my most exhilarating exhibitions as a little boy growing up in Eziudo community, my maternal home, was when I was asked to go to Itu, now HQ of Ezinihitte LGA, Imo State, Nigeria, by my maternal grandmother, Daa Nnennia Iwe, nee Abii, to go visit Daa Mbiwe.”
It is a mark of Anaele’s mastery that Daa-Mbiiway who uncannily disappears at the beginning of the novel curiously ends up holding the entire tale together through the spell of the much-coveted longevity recipe.
The span of the novel, divided into three parts, can be appreciated thus – Part One: The Progenitors (West Africa. Early 19th Century); Part Two: Prodigious Leap of Limbs (West Africa. 19th Century to Early 20th Century); Part Three: Blindfolds and Iron Fists – The Rocky Road to the Imminent River (Southern Nigeria: 20th Century). There is a mini-section in Part One bearing one chapter (14) entitled “Mid-19th Century. Trans-Atlantic to New England).
The book ends with “Epilogue: Ajaelu Tastes the Hiatus Music” where we read: “Urem Okakuko sat, pensive, in front of the Centenary Hall, Ake, Abeokuta, bathed in her own tears. Inside the Hall, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were performing Satchmo’s ‘Back O Town’ and Armstrong himself, the lead vocalist, was rhapsodising.” Further down the epilogue, Ihuoma writes: “It was 13 July 1934. Duke Ellington had released his hit track ‘Symphony in Black” in New York. That same day, not far from the Centenary Hall, a baby was born to the family of Pa Ayodele Soyinka in nearby Isara, Abeokuta.”
Let’s call that baby Wole Soyinka, the future Nobel Laureate in Literature who was Ihuoma’s Head of Department at the then University of Ife from 1978 to 1982.
Ihuoma’s blend of fiction, fact and fantasy in Imminent River intervolves the longevity progenitor Daa Mbiiway and her husband Okpuzu, the feuding plutocrats Jesse an Opuddah, the matriarch’s hostile sons Chimenam and Dioti-Ojioho, the suitable boy Ezemba and the village belle Agbonma whom Ezemba loves madly, Edidion whom Daa-Mbiiway almost adopted as a granddaughter, the treacherous and cultic High Chief Nnanyereugo Chris Ojionu, Urem Okakuko the storyteller, Wopara etc.
The quest for certitude is not deterred by a letter that informs: “I have just realised that there is no such thing as the Longevity Formula. Or rather that the documents we have, with figures purporting to point us to Eldorado, is nothing but an attempt to send us on a wild goose chase.” Cracking the Nsibidi code of the Longevity Formula remains a life-affirming mission.
Disunity in the land makes the people susceptible to conquest and slavery. Conspiracy rules the roost. The comeuppance of evil comes translated in the news headline: “Strange River swallows HCO’s Ojionu Cottage.” It is a brave new world in which “Youths Demand jail for Eagloma cultists”, by listing “the alleged crimes of the fraternity to include, murder, unhealthy sexual practices, the so-called ‘Eagloma double’, political blackmail, archaic cultural practices such as bride battering and perversion of justice.”
Ihuoma’s Imminent River strikes a chord with Ayi Kwei Armah’s 1978 novel The Healers in which the protagonist Densu envisions African unity, just as the hero Ezemba gets the ultimate introduction from David thusly: “Sir, my name is David. I’m the son of Jesse, the healer from the Healing Home. We were rescued from the sea of malevolence. We are here to help the just retool.”
Ihuoma’s reputation as a poet is well-established. He has equally done commendable work as a playwright. His novel Imminent River is ample evidence of his roundedness in all the genres. His power of description can be enchanting, as note: “Even though he liked to reassure himself that it was Agbonma’s character, rather than her looks, that held his attention, he would be hard-pressed convincing God in heaven that her physical beauty had no part in it.
She had such lush supply of eyelashes and brows. Her deep, brown eyes themselves appeared to be set deeper from the rest of her face. This tended to project her face outwards, giving her something of a permanent smile and an inviting visage. You would think Leonardo Da Vinci had wanted to capture her in that immortal brushwork but could not and had to settle for the Mona Lisa instead.”
However, there is an error in the blurb of Imminent River which the publishers will need to correct in the next edition where “will take advantage off” is printed instead of “will take advantage of.”
Anaele Ihuoma is unafraid to tackle the big themes. With Imminent River, he is poised to crack the canon.
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/artsbooks/351371-book-review-imminent-river-a-transcontinental-saga.html
THE RETURN OF HALF-SOMETHING
by Chukwudi Eze
A New Yorker of mixed heritage believes his destiny lies in his African ancestral homeland in this dramatic novel.
In 1993, 17-year-old Emmanuel’s father, Uchechi, tells him that his destiny awaits him in the African kingdom of Umuati. Uchechi believes his American son will somehow need to help Umuati battle injustice and oppression and that failure to do so will curse Emmanuel. A decade later, Emmanuel resides in Manhattan with a Ph.D. from Columbia Law School but still hasn’t visited Umuati. He falls for Rebecca Levitt, who’s vice president at her father Reuben’s brokerage firm, Peak Management Group. Emmanuel even takes a job at the firm to get close to Rebecca. But Reuben disapproves of their inevitable romance, primarily because Emmanuel, who’s biracial, isn’t Jewish like the Levitts. Emmanuel fights for the chance to marry Rebecca and, soon after, finds a way he can assist Umuati. An oil-field explosion there has resulted in fatalities and a devastating oil spill. Emmanuel calls Umuati’s regent and offers, pro bono, to file a lawsuit against the company responsible, Sooli Oil. This entails finally traveling to Umuati, where Emmanuel surprisingly faces some resistance. After the evidence he has gathered inexplicably vanishes, Emmanuel and others learn there may be a spy working for Sooli, which ultimately leads to murder and a kidnapping. But it’s the opportunity to move to Umuati that presents Emmanuel with his greatest challenge, as Rebecca’s refusal to leave her U.S. home may threaten their prospective future together. Emmanuel’s convincing motivations propel Eze’s (Leadership Stories of Mother Hen, 2012, etc.) engrossing, character-driven story. For example, destiny plays a large role in the protagonist’s decisions, be it pursuing Rebecca or coming to the aid of Umuati. This stems from Uchechi’s forecasting his son’s fate and possible curse; just days later, Emmanuel tragically lost both parents in a storm-related boating accident. Similarly, he has thrived academically in spite of the discrimination he faced from school bullies calling him half-breed or “merboy” (half fish, half boy). Emmanuel later overcomes adversaries in Umuati who see him as an outcast. He has an Umuati name, Nkemefuna, and knows the language but is unfamiliar with the culture. The first third of the novel centers on Emmanuel’s growing relationship with Rebecca. It’s a rewarding subplot, though some of his behavior is more obsessive than romantic. For instance, when she seems reluctant to further the relationship, Emmanuel asks his cousin Anna to befriend Rebecca. He’s certain that the friendship will help him win Rebecca. Regardless, his sweet words to her are often charming: “If I ever live this life again, let it always be with you, my love.” The plot shift to the lawsuit adds tension and suspense. Individuals opposing the suit put Emmanuel in unmistakable peril, but the courtroom scenes are intense as well, as the protagonist fights a multibillion-dollar company. Female characters are strong, particularly Anna, who, in a flashback, doesn’t hesitate to warn a sexist, racist biker against calling her a “bitch.”
A protagonist of conviction braves discrimination and a potentially dangerous corporation.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chukwudi-eze/the-return-of-half-something/
SHORT REVIEW OF COLOURS OF HATRED
Genre Fiction.
Blurb “On her deathbed, Leona seeks forgiveness by confessional. Dastardly as the sin is, it is an act of love, loyalty, disobedience, and perceived fairness. How did she get here, where she, an internationally renowned model, is forced to kill her father-in-law to avenge her mother’s death? Set against a background of real events, Colours of Hatred is a complex web of plots detailing a woman’s journey from childhood through the fire and anvil of love, loss, betrayal, lust, and duty.”
Dialogue Written in English with smatterings of Igbo.
Themes Love, Revenge, War and Betrayal.
Editing Some errors.
Plot Leona is the only child of a Nigerian man, James and a Sudanese woman, Mary living in Sudan. Her idyllic childhood is shattered by the actions of rebels which forces her family to flee to Nigeria to escape death. In Nigeria, her parents gradually become strangers living together and James goes on to marry two other wives who bear him four sons. Following the death of Mary, Leona is convinced by James to revenge Mary’s death but things go awry afterwards.
Today’s review is a day later than scheduled and is a solo review by Lady B.
What worked? The Colours of Hatred is a fictional story set against a background of real events in Sudan and Nigeria. It’s narrated in the first person by the protagonist, Leona. The story unfolds from her perspective as a child growing up in Sudan and later, Nigeria where her family flees to to escape death.
It explores the political history of both countries and so, you learn about the civil war in Sudan, the culture and socio-economic issues in the country as well as the similarities between Sudan and Nigeria. As someone who didn’t know that much about Sudan, I enjoyed reading about their way of life and I liked the fact that though there was ongoing civil unrest/war in Sudan, the book focused on how it affected the day-to-day lives of the people and not the fighting itself.
I also liked the twist at the end though it would have read better had it been followed to a logical conclusion.
What didn’t work? Sadly, this book didn’t work for me. I found the dialogue stilted and the narration was confusing as it went back and forth between the past and the present in a disjointed manner.
I found it difficult to connect with any of the characters. They didn’t feel real to me. The motivations of their actions were weird and not relatable.
The story didn’t ring true and there were gaps in the story for example, I wanted to know how Leona’s family escaped the rebels in Sudan. I also wanted to know how Agnes was able to get to Leona.
Finally, I thought the end was unsatisfactory. Obinna tried to offer an explanation for the storyline leading to the end but it just ended up introducing things which I couldn’t reconcile with the body of the story.
Number of pages 335.
Publisher Parresia Publishers Ltd.
Damage $9.35 on Amazon Kindle.
Rating 5.5/10.
Colours of Hatred is available on Amazon.
Have you read Colours of Hatred? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
https://literaryeverything.com/2020/07/07/colours-of-hatred-by-obinna-udenwe/