Novo número da revista Saraba

Acaba de sair o 14º número da revista literária nigeriana Saraba, que dá a conhecer jovens escritores promissores. Números anteriores da revista (em pdf e sempre disponíveis online) tiveram como tema principal a África, a Justiça, o Sexo, a Música.

Questionado pelo portal Africa in Words sobre o estado actual da escrita nigeriana, Emmanuel Iduma, escritor e co-fundador da revista, respondeu:

This is a big question.  First of all brave people like Parrésia.  I think I will just be honest with you, because it is so important and dear to my heart that every single opportunity I have to talk about it I want to make sure I’m honest.  Nigerian literature is at a very transitional stage.   If you look at these photos lining the walls of this book café  –  Ben Okri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole, Biyi Bandele – you will realise that these writers are based out of this country.  And you are like, why?  It is a simple thing.  It is a game of numbers, because the Nigerian publishing industry has not grown to the level where we can publish a book in 10s of 1000s.  So in the UK or the US they have an audience, they have thousands or millions of people who are ready to buy a book if it is pushed enough.  So writers like Adichie or Okri become stars, literary stars.  But why I think these things are changing is because now there are brave publishers.  Because the basic problem is not really that people are not writing. When people talk about the fact that there was a lull – I’m like writers never stopped writing; in the 80s, in the 90s, writers never stopped writing.  The only thing that happened was that there were few outlets and this is changing now.  This is a transitional stage and a lot of us are going to pay price for that transition, because if you are not a writer who is interested in living in the West for instance and trying to get your way into those publishers, you might have to pay the price.

Leiam a entrevista na íntegra aqui e explorem o site de Saraba.