Academics honour ‘Dust’ author with 2-day symposium
William Ondiege doing contemporary dance of ‘Dust’ spoke by Maimouna Jallow, Mueni Lundi and Mshai Mwangola. Photo | Margretta wa Gacheru
What you need to know:
What’s more, all the papers presented at the ‘Perspectives on Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’ symposium will be published in a special issue of ‘The Journal of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies’.
Apart from possibly winning the Nobel Prize for literature, I can’t imagine what could be more humbling than to have your countrymen and women, intellectual peers and the widely-respected African Leadership Centre organise a two-day symposium exclusively devoted to you and your writing.
Plus the people presenting papers and creating performances around your work are some of the most highly regarded intellectuals and cultural activists not just in Kenya but from around Africa.
What’s more, all the papers presented at the ‘Perspectives on Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’ symposium will be published in a special issue of ‘The Journal of Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies’.
It will include critical analyses of Ms Adhiambo’s award winning novel, Dust and the short story, ‘Weight of Whispers’ which earned her the Caine Prize and wider recognition of this brilliant Kenyan woman’s creative capacities.
Among those who presented papers and took part in panel discussions were mostly academics from Kenyatta, Moi, Makerere and Nairobi universities as well as from Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Others came either from the African Leadership Centre ( Godwin Murunga and Mshai Mwangola), Kwani Trust (Billy Kahora), GoDown Art Centre (Garnette Oluoch Olunya) or the journal’s Dr Tom Odhiambo.
But the two culminating events of the symposium might have been the most inspiring features of the two-days. That’s because one was an ‘endnote address’ given by Ms Adhiambo herself, speaking specifically about her newest literary project, followed by a set of performances based on a selected assortment of her published and unpublished works.
One who loves to tear down false idols
Ms Adhiambo began her engaging ‘endnote’ by addressing the literature students present who, like many of us, were slightly in awe of this extraordinary writer. She told them she was an iconoclast, one who loves to tear down false idols, (even if one of them was herself). She also advised them to beware of big egos, warning they are impediments to creative expression.
The egoless-ness of Ms Adhiambo came through clearly as she gave an awesome ‘preview’ of her forthcoming novel, Dragonfly Sea. What made it so special was the way she navigated us through her own intellectual journey as she’d researched what will most likely be deemed her ‘second masterpiece’.
Again concerned with African history (as with ‘Dust’), this time her theme is symbolised by the dragonfly who has got the phenomenal ability to fly thousands of miles and soar high over the Indian Ocean, a central subject of the new novel.
Her fascination with Africa’s relations with Asia — especially India and China — as well as with the ocean flowing between them has taken her into uncharted territories, opening up questions about identity, history, poetry, map-making and many other themes she delicately touched upon during her presentation.
Not wanting to disclose too much of her new work as her publisher wants to be the first to tell the world about Dragonfly Sea, Ms Adhiambo nonetheless whetted our appetites for the book.
But if she was inspired, the ingenious ‘readings’ from her written works by a team of tightly-knitted performance artists was bedazzling. Led by Dr Mshai Mwangola, the team included storytellers like Aghan Odero, Mueni Lundi and Maimouna Jallow as well as dancer Matthew Ondiege and musician George Achieng Odero whose performance of the Kenya National Anthem on a single-stringed Luo harp was just one of the surprises that the team devised.
Starting with short pieces related to Ms Adhiambo’s artistic development of Dragonfly Sea, the team stayed true to her writings, even as they transformed them into vibrant stories. Some of the performances were slightly stilted since the cast all held copies of the texts, which included portions of Dust and excerpts from two of Ms Adhiambo’s short stories, ‘The Woman and Dressing the Dirge’.
Dr Murunga will be leaving ALC soon, returning to teaching at KU, so the symposium (instigated by both Dr Mwangola and him) was a fitting way for him to depart in style.
For even the honoured writer herself confessed she had never imagined her characters could come alive so vibrantly as they had by the symposium’s end.
