THE EDIFICE. By Kole Omotosho

'Why do couples get married? Or to narrow things down, why do men decide to marry and settle down? Surely love must be a major ingredient, or should be, despite the fact that as time goes on the protagonists might get disillusioned, disenchanted and drift apart. This is a common scenario worldwide. In this work a young Nigerian travels abroad for his studies and marries a white English lady, Daisy. Ultimately they come together to Nigeria where things fall apart decisively for the lady. Her man (husband), Dele does not come across as the most charitable of men, as he is wont to cast aspersions on women generally, including his "native" women back at home – are they (women) really that grasping, greedy and importunate? But Daisy actually seems a very nice lady and it's a crying shame that she's subjected to such humiliation and pain by her husband. After all, looking at it objectively, she makes tremendous sacrifices, leaving her well known comfort zone in Europe to be beside the man she loves far away in Africa. The man who treats her like trash. Daisy's docility seems incredible.(Contrast the situation in another celebrated novel, by Mariama Ba – THE SCARLET SONG -, where the "scorned" white female protagonist in a similar situation apparently snaps, kills her own baby and tries to murder her own two-timing man). Some pundits point out that when African writers paint such picture of white women involved with African men suffering inexorably, it is some sort of atonement for how the "western world plundered and purloined Africa". Nonsense? Essentially, the sympathy would solidly be on Daisy's side...'

Other books by Kole Omotosho

Creative Works

The Edifice (1971)

The Combat

Miracles (short stories) (1973)

Fela's Choice (1974)

Sacrifice (1974, 1978)

The Scales (1976)

To Borrow a Wandering Leaf (1978)

Memories of Our Recent Boom (1982)

Just Before Dawn (Spectrum Books, 1988, ISBN 9789782460073)

The Curse (1976)

Shadows in the Horizon (1977)

General

The Form of the African Novel (1979 etc.)

The Theatrical Into Theatre: a study of the drama and theatre of the English-speaking Caribbean (1982)

Season of Migration to the South: Africa's crises reconsidered (1994)

Achebe or Soyinka? A Study in Contrasts (1995)

Woza Africa (1997)

A SELECTION OF AFRICAN POETRY

By Theodore G Vincent and Kojo Senanu

'A magnificent work - and although published decades ago, not really dated as this is quintessential poetry dished out by some of the most outstanding poets/writers in African history. This was/is a veritable textbook and general work throbbing with the acme of poetry as produced by great early African writers. The names of the poets whose works are introduced here are illustrious - they include Lenrie Peters (Gambia), Okot p'bitek (Uganda), Leopold Senghor (Senegal), Wole Soyinka, J. P Clark (Nigeria), Kofi Awoonor, Kwesi Brew (Ghana), David Rubadiri, Denis Brutus (Southern Africa) among many others. This is a top-notch work which also includes the best of translations, even from African languages into English. The approach of the authors is sublime; as we are given brief biographies of the poets, and then individual poems are brilliantly analysed, with excellent comments and explanation. In the process we can appreciate the variegated figures of speech, general imagery and ideas of so many poems. We learn for example that poets like Soyinka and Peters are rather "difficult", yet the authors *editors, rather, pull out all the stops to simplify or explain their work in detail. The variety of selected sample poems is extraordinary - for example, one can relish a work like Lest we should be the last (by Kwesi Brew) whose dazzling simplicity reaches a bathetic crescendo...' 

- Malome