At the Hay Festival, Ngugi wa Thiong'o spoke of the nature of authoritarian rule, mentioning Zaire ruled by Mobutu, Central Africa by Bokassa, Uganda under Idi Amin and Kenya under Moi. He felt that under dictatorships, the resulting culture of silence and fear has a corrupting influence. "With twenty years of dictatorship, moral decay seeps through every vein and artery of society." This moral decay formed a partnership between the west and Africa, with Africa also acting as a junior actor of the west in the Cold War.

In his latest book, WIZARD OF THE CROW, Ngugi chose to invent a fictional territory for the action of the story - he did not want to identify one country as he thought it might distract from the story. There is a lot of humour in the book and he argued that humour acts as a screen (like distance) with which to view grim reality. It allows us to palatably look at the moral devastation and decay in post-colonial territories, taking the sting out of the situation. The passage he selected to read aloud illustrated this perfectly, and had the audience laughing out loud:

Minister Machokali was waxing ecstatic about how the benefits of the project could trickle down to all citizens. Once the project was completed, no historian would ever again talk about any other wonders in the world...Here Machokali paused dramatically to allow time for an ovation. Except for members of Parliament, Cabinet ministers, officials of the Ruler's Party, and representatives of the armed forces, nobody clapped, but nevertheless Machokali thanked the entire assembly for their overwhelming support and he invited any citizen eager to say a word in praise of Marching to Heaven to step forward. People stared at one another and at the platform in stony silence. The only hands raised were those of the ministers, members of Parliament, and officials of the Ruler's Party, but the minister ignored them and appealed to the citizenry. Are you so overwhelmed by happiness that you are lost for words? Is there no one able to express his joy in words?

A man raised his hand and Machokali quickly beckoned him to come over to the microphone. The man, clearly advanced in years, leaned on a walking stick as he pushed through the crowd. Two police officers ran to help him toward the microphone near the platform. Age was still revered in Aburiria, and the multitude waited for his words as if from an oracle. But when the old man began to speak it was clear he had difficulty in pronouncing Swahili words for the ruler, Mtukufu Rais, calling out instead, Mtukutu Rahisi. Horrified at the Ruler's being called a Cheap Excellency, one of the policemen quickly whispered in the old man's ear that the phrase was Mtukufu Rais or Rais Mtukufu, which confused him even more. Coughing and clearing his throat to still himself, he called out into the microphone, Rahisi Mkundu. Oh, no, it is not Cheap Arsehole, the other policeman whispered in the other ear, no, no, it is His Holy Mightiness, Mtukufu Mtakatifu, which did not help matters because the old man now said, with what the old man thought was confidence, Mkundu Takatifu. At the mention of "His Holy Arsehole," the multitude broke out in hilarious laughter, which made the old man forget what he had wanted to say... (pp.17-18)

There was a further issue discussed in this session about the language chosen to write in if you are multilingual, but I'll save it for another day, as Ngugi, Habila, Adichie and Soyinka all touched on this over the course of the week.

And, speaking of Adichie, I am absolutely thrilled to announce that Chimamanda has won the Orange Prize tonight (full press release here): thoroughly deserved for an outstanding piece of work. I am sure we're all looking forward to what she writes next!

I'm off to the London Book Fair today (meetings). I'm actually rather looking forward to it. Having retired from bookselling for the moment, I am not there to frantically work so will simply have the pleasure of moseying around looking at what is on offer from the various publishers. Much more fun.

So, just a few items to keep you amused:

The Orange Prize shortlist for 2007 has been announced:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun (yay!)
Rachel Cusk - Arlington Park
Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Jane Harris - The Observations
Anne Tyler - Digging to America - Chatto & Windus

Alexander McCall Smith talks about his first house in Botswana.

Oh, for more booksellers like these! Matthew Crockatt and Adam Powell of the lovely independent bookshop Crockatt & Powell discuss the UK booktrade:

For us the idea of a bookshop is that your hardcore customers, the ones who keep you alive, who buy 50-100 books a year, they want to come in, chat to us about books, see books they haven't seen before - they want to feel like their passion about books is being reciprocated. (Copyright David Teather, THE GUARDIAN)

And lastly, Pascal Wyse in the Guardian Weekend magazine has a little piece called "Wyse Words" which always reminds me somewhat of THE MEANING OF LIFF by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. On Saturday his definition was:

Refleshment The reserve spurt of energy that joggers deploy when passing someone sexy, even though they're so exhausted they could throw up their own heart. Body language is transformed from flailing sweatbox to "I'm fit - and so are you, baby. Let's work out." Once safely out of sight, they fall over.

Excellent. I've just recently rejoined my local gym. Oh so familiar.

You've still got until Friday to put your names in the hat for a free copy of Fadiman's EX LIBRIS.

Thanks to the friendly people over at Chatto & Windus, I have been reading my way through Xiaolu Guo's A CONCISE CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS, recently longlisted for this year's Orange Prize. I'm not convinced that this book will make the shortlist, but that's not to say that it isn't an interesting and thought-provoking read. If I have one criticism of the title, it felt almost as though there were two books in one, struggling to get out. On the one hand a hilarious book about discovering a new language and culture, in the vein of David Sedaris' ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY, and on the other hand a darker almost more seedy novel. Interestingly, while the first half had me entranced and laughing out loud, it is the feel of the second half which has remained with me. So although I can't say I enjoyed the second half, it has lingered on, giving me pause for thought.

There's nothing like an outsider to comment on mainstream society and Guo's character "Z" (no-one can be bothered to pronounce her name) is a delightful prism through which to view British eccentricities, while reflecting back on her own ("The day when I arrived to the West, I suddenly realized I am a Chinese"). The novel is laid out with each chapter the definition of a new word, and Z's English improves exponentially over the course of the book, as do her criticisms of the new society around her, her confused feelings for her lover, and fears about returning home to China - this really works. Half way through the book Z comments in the midst of a hilarious moment, "Your friends look at us three Orientals, like look at three panda escape from bamboo forest." There is an underlying pain here amidst the hilarity, and she gets this spot on.

Like Tsitsi Dangarembga, Guo looks set to produce a wonderfully varied output of both film and literature (her film HOW IS YOUR FISH TODAY has just won Grand Prix du Jury at the International Women's Film Festival in France). She is writing about the widespread phenomenon of the immigrant experience, the outsider looking in, and she does this without sounding worthy or patronizing.

As I regularly blog about my struggles learning Tamil, you know the angst I go through grappling bemusedly with linguistic challenges. This is the strong point of Guo's book. She is utterly believable in her portrayal of baffled language learner. Here is a taster:

proper adj real or genuine; suited to a particular purpose; correct in behaviour; excessively moral

Today my first time taking taxi. How I find important place with bus and tube? Is impossibility. Tube map is like plate of noodles. Bus route is in-understandable. In my home town everyone take cheap taxi, but in London is very expensive and taxi is like the Loyal family look down to me.
Driver say: 'Please shut the door properly!'
I already shut the door, but taxi don't moving.
Driver shout me again: 'Shut the door properly! in a concisely manner.
I am bit scared. I not understanding what is this 'properly'.
'I beg your pardon?' I ask. 'What is properly?'
'Shut the door properly!' Taxi driver turns around his big head and neck nearly break because of anger.
'But what is "properly", Sir?' I so frightened that I not daring ask it once more again.
Driver coming out from taxi, and walking to door. I think he going to kill me.
He opens door again, smashing it back to me hardly.
'Properly!' he shout. (pp.16-17)