Thursday, November 13, 2008

Fim Magazine's Hit-list and other Kannywood stuff

This is sort of old news by now, but i thought i should post the links anyway.

At the end of October, Kaduna-based human rights organization Civics Rights Congress got involved in the Ibro case.

And the November issue of Fim magazine publishes a hit list of film people most likely to be arrested in the upcoming months.... (Slightly ironic taken in context of other entertainment magazines, like People where "most likely to wear bad fasion" lists are the order of the day. Here, in Kano, we have "most likely to be arrested." This Leadership article by Abdulaziz Ahmad Abdulaziz goes into more detail.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

CNN interview with Hausa novelist Sa'adatu Baba on Inside Africa

This is a few weeks old, but I was finally able to download it online. Here is a CNN feature on Hausa literature, with a brief statement by my friend Hausa novelist Sa'adatu Baba. It's thrilling to see Hausa writing featured on international news, but I wish the problems with censorship weren't simplified down to sound bites like "conflict with Muslim tradition." (It's also a bit funny to hear things translated--when the translation sounds very different from what the person was saying....) but, anyway it's great exposure for Hausa novelists, and I know a documentary filmmaker in Jos who interviewed Sa'a at the latest ANA conference because he saw her on CNN!

Friday, November 07, 2008

Monday, November 03, 2008

The Inevitable Lost Phone: An sace wayata

Coming back from the Association of Nigerian Authors convention, hosted in Gusau, Zamfara State (which I'll try to write more on later), I lost my handset, which was subsequently stolen in the process of me trying to find it....

So, for those of you who read this blog and know I have your number, could you send me an email with your number? Alternatively, you can try texting or phoning me in about two days once I have swapped the line and bought a new phone.

So, now I have joined the legions of others with this problem. It's so painful... arghh... The phone was the cheapest available model. I paid N3500 for it (about $30)--the thief probably won't get more than N500 for it. I would be happy to pay triple that amount to get the hundreds of numbers back.... But, alas, after about ten minutes, the ringing stopped and the network said it was switched off, likely the sim card already abandoned in a ditch.

Wayyo....

My one consolation is that I have this slightly obsessive/compulsive habit of typing up important text messages before I delete them (I used to copy numbers from the texts but I stopped doing that about a month ago; I will henceforth start doing it again), and I had copied down every number in my phone two years ago when I left, so the main numbers I need are the ones I've collected in the past five months.... which are substantial.

So, to those who know me in my real life and not just my blog, please send me your numbers....