LAST week was the turn of 2013 Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) poet laureate, Tade Ipadeola, to visit the Ebedi International Writers Residency in Iseyin, Oyo State, to mentor residents, Lamin Fatty (The Gambia), Dossou Kokou (Togo) and Carl Terver (Nigeria).
Ipadeola, who incidentally was among those who inaugurated the residency in 2010, expressed happiness to how it has grown to become the biggest residency in Africa, just as he commended the founder, Dr Wale Okediran, for the feat.
The poet laureate, who is a lawyer by profession, added that through Dr Okediran’s love for literature, the Ebedi International Writers Residency has been catapulted from just a Nigerian brand to a global brand.
He said: “I have attended residencies in the US, Canada, Belgium, UK, South Korea, and I can say it that the Ebedi residency is world class.”
He, therefore, charged residents to seize the opportunity of their time in Ebedi to come up with stories that will give answers to what Westerners readers don’t know about Africa.
“Western readers are no longer looking for Western stories. They want to know more about Africa and it is from our writers they can get the questions bothering their minds.
“That is why African writers scooped the majority of global literary awards last year, including the Nobel Prize for Literature, Booker prize, among others.
“The truth is that Africans contribute only three per cent of writings in the global literary space, and this shows that our writers have a lot of work to do.
“The beginning of that, therefore, is the opportunity you have been given to spend some time in this serene environment to focus on your writing.”
The residents on their part spoke on the work they are doing in the course of their residency. Fatty specifically said he was already working on his eight-day, five countries journey before he got to Iseyin.
Fatty said from The Gambia, he passed through Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin Republic before getting to Nigeria.
Kokou and Terver, on their part, spoke about their sessions with students of some secondary schools who they teach aspects of literature.
Some visitors to the residency during the event, however, charged the management to try as much as possible to make the parley between residents and established writers to be bigger so that more people can benefit from it.
The highlight of the event was when poems were recited by participants before Mr Ipadeola had a one-on-one parley with the residents.
and then