"She did not know what was expected of her.
She had nearly reached him when suddenly, on an outward gust of air, he half said, half announced, a name: 'Wuraola.'
Who?
She froze, not knowing what to say or do.
Of course, she knew that Wuraola was her Yoruba name, the name that her grandfather had asked in a letter for her to be called when her mother had held her Nigerian naming ceremony. Wuraola means gold.
She knew all this...
...but nobody had ever called her Wuraola, not even her mother, whom she could now see from the corner of her eye making anxious, silent gestures for her to go to her grandfather.
Here, in this stone-walled corridor where the sunlight came in through enormous, stiff mosquito screens over each window and her clothes clung to her like another skin, Wuraola sounded like another person. Not her at all.
Should she answer to this name, and by doing so steal the identity of someone who belonged here?
Should she...become Wuraola?
But how?"
From The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi (2005)
Helen Oyeyemi *1984
I love reading books in English - it's such a vast land out there and gladly, English is becoming a global language transporting unfamiliar ideas to broaden our limited knowledge.
Take Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones - I only knew 'bougainvillea' as a beautiful plant so far - never knew about a Bougainville island let alone about a crucial civil war in the 1990s on it. Probably, I could have looked it up in some history book and it is actually on Wikipedia - but truth be told: to have the incidents described from the innocent point of view of a child makes it more impressive and long-lasting.
And so it happened with another book I had chosen for The English Book Club last season (see the extra page on this blog): Starbook by Ben Okri. While preparing the session I came across the Yoruba Philosophy, embodied in the Ifa-ife Divination, known as the tripartite Book of Enlightenment. The novel's underlying Yoruba philosophy and its mixture of reality and imagination (actually 'dreamtime' - now think of the Aborigines...), made it like undergoing a time and sense expanding experience.
All in all, it left me ashamed of my limited European centred knowledge of Enlightenment and here I quote from Wikipedia: "Yoruba thought is mainly narrative in form, explicating and pointing to the knowledge of things, affecting the corporeal and the spiritual universe and its wellness. Yoruba people have hundreds of aphorisms, folktales, and lore, and they believe that any lore that widens people's horizons and presents food for thought is the beginning of a philosophy." This is exactly what happens with a lot of books I read and what I meant to say above: reading books is certainly widening your horizon!
And then I came across Helen Oyeyemi's book The Icarus Girl on my shelf, actually a remainder of my visit to the EdBookFest in 2011 (unfortunately, I didn't meet her). Another book largely enmeshed in the Yoruba philosophy and in this particular book the very special view on twins, but that's to you to find out by reading it...
So, another book written in the spirit of this particular African mythology and the playful usage of the literary theme of doubles. But, as usual, my focus will be here on Helen.
Helen was born in Nigeria and moved to England in 1988 at the age of four. She wrote The Icarus Girl in 2005 while still sitting for her A-level at The Vaughan in London, not yet 19 years old! While reading at Cambridge University, two of her plays, Juniper's Whitening and Victimese, were performed by fellow students. In 2007, her second book The Opposite House followed and in 2009 White is for Witching, which won the Somerset Maugham Award. In 2011, her fourth novel Mr. Fox and just this year, 2014, her latest book Boy, Snow, Bird were published. For those who follow my blog for some time: she is another author of the Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists issue of 2013 with a short excerpt of her latest book. And those of you who've read all those quotes by Zora Neale Hurston lately: Helen's fourth novel was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award!
She is a promising author with a quality on its own - mythical, magical, witty and spiritual, close to fairy tales in its imagination and fantasy. She is widely related by reviews to Edgar Allen Poe in its mysticism. Yet, I think this is limited in praise and is mainly because her writing is so original that assessments come short of what her writing is and does, being closely connected to her inner knowledge of other mythologies. As mentioned above, her writing is closely related to her African/ Yoruba background which leaves European points of views with a void. A void in relating to forms of 'reality' in connection to the spiritual and multilevel realities. There is a lot to learn out there and we can expect more of this gifted author!
And so it happened with another book I had chosen for The English Book Club last season (see the extra page on this blog): Starbook by Ben Okri. While preparing the session I came across the Yoruba Philosophy, embodied in the Ifa-ife Divination, known as the tripartite Book of Enlightenment. The novel's underlying Yoruba philosophy and its mixture of reality and imagination (actually 'dreamtime' - now think of the Aborigines...), made it like undergoing a time and sense expanding experience.All in all, it left me ashamed of my limited European centred knowledge of Enlightenment and here I quote from Wikipedia: "Yoruba thought is mainly narrative in form, explicating and pointing to the knowledge of things, affecting the corporeal and the spiritual universe and its wellness. Yoruba people have hundreds of aphorisms, folktales, and lore, and they believe that any lore that widens people's horizons and presents food for thought is the beginning of a philosophy." This is exactly what happens with a lot of books I read and what I meant to say above: reading books is certainly widening your horizon!
So, another book written in the spirit of this particular African mythology and the playful usage of the literary theme of doubles. But, as usual, my focus will be here on Helen.
Helen was born in Nigeria and moved to England in 1988 at the age of four. She wrote The Icarus Girl in 2005 while still sitting for her A-level at The Vaughan in London, not yet 19 years old! While reading at Cambridge University, two of her plays, Juniper's Whitening and Victimese, were performed by fellow students. In 2007, her second book The Opposite House followed and in 2009 White is for Witching, which won the Somerset Maugham Award. In 2011, her fourth novel Mr. Fox and just this year, 2014, her latest book Boy, Snow, Bird were published. For those who follow my blog for some time: she is another author of the Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists issue of 2013 with a short excerpt of her latest book. And those of you who've read all those quotes by Zora Neale Hurston lately: Helen's fourth novel was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award!
She is a promising author with a quality on its own - mythical, magical, witty and spiritual, close to fairy tales in its imagination and fantasy. She is widely related by reviews to Edgar Allen Poe in its mysticism. Yet, I think this is limited in praise and is mainly because her writing is so original that assessments come short of what her writing is and does, being closely connected to her inner knowledge of other mythologies. As mentioned above, her writing is closely related to her African/ Yoruba background which leaves European points of views with a void. A void in relating to forms of 'reality' in connection to the spiritual and multilevel realities. There is a lot to learn out there and we can expect more of this gifted author!
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