The centre which provided attendees with a book voucher as a means of appreciation for gracing the colourful occasion, were also opportune to peer at the finely coordinated jetsam variety of books at the Debonair Bookstore.
The audience was attentive at the experience proffered by Simidele Dosekun, being the former C.O.O of Kachifo Limited, publisher of Farafina books. We were also mesmerized by the tranquil demeanor of Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo who got us philosophical through her reading from Roses and Bullets. Also graceful in her work was a rather sassy and facially extroverted Lola Shoneyin, then clad in the middle amongst the other female writers was Seye Oke, who was often stage shy, but intellectually composed and admirable in her subtle reading. But we cannot wait for the bursting fictional temerity of Joy Bewaji’s yet-to-be released novel; she dazed us with a little sneak into a book that I, in isolation regard as being satirically cynical and conspicuously unavoidable.
Earlier, an enterprising merry looking lady, carved in a petite figure and wearing freezing dreadlocks declared the reading session open, at the Book ‘n’ Guage event. First, it was Lola Shoneyin who read from her book The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, she displayed her erudite speech composure which was modish, bold and intellectually daring, her ability to interpret the content and intent of some characters in her book through basic melodramatic facial gesture certainly compels one for an inquisitive read back of her novel.
Next was the highly respectable and award winning writer, Professor Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, her book, Roses and Bullets captured the scourge of an eternal animosity in the mould of Ginika to the failures of our forebears, she was inhumanely (ani)mated. More so, the perverted theme in the Biafrian war by some soldiers, as espoused in ‘Roses and Bullets’ suddenly got majority of the women at the event judgmentally frozen and emotionally defiant, to imagine the ghoulish sexual appetite of the soldiers depicted in the book ‘Roses and Bullets’. And I snapped Lola Shoneyin giving away a seething expression at the thought of the soldier’s debauchery attitude.In Seye Oke, who has series of published books like A Time to heal, Love’s life and Debbie’s Diary, the growing thematic mindset of some people at the event when she introduced us to a love story in her reading, and that surely pinched our abstract sense of humour to an epistolary love message of a character in her book. However, the bursting excitement from Joy Bewaji’s work in progress transcends the audience on a messianic journey steaming with delightful spasm of fictional sarcasm; her few lines she read from the book sparks off unsavoury gender sensitivity that was expressively sexist for a girl child in a ‘competitive’ economy…
Well, at each interval of the reading session, special songs were performed by some soul divas walking with the grace of a feline artistry; it was Aduke who rendered a song that arouses my sense of feeling for our dear country, Nigeria. But quite particularly, it was Aramide, rendition of a song titled ‘Bolaji’ that got me thinking; the etymology of that song compelled some of the people in attendance to ask the question… ‘What did you do to Bolaji?’ Maybe we can empathize and sympathizes with our lovelorn soul Diva as she poured her soul to those lyrics, but we are extremely convinced beyond measure about one thing, that Aramide’s lyrical clef is absolutely her FORTE…surely she endeared us to her soulful voice with merry eyes all cheering, in such a feminized evening for the lover of the pen fraternity, satisfied, justified and creatively fortified for another evening at Debonair Bookstore.
Fakunle Sheriff Ekundayo
Contact Information:
For inquiries: pulpfactioner@gmail.com
Website: http://pulpfaction.org.ng/
READ NEXT:
