Though the second edition, it was the first in Lagos and a wonderful experience altogether
August 6 2011 at Rise library Lagos. Apart from the fact that, it started a little behind schedule, the authors arrived well on time and the audience was at its best; co – operative and orderly. It was impressive to see that, even the library users also waited to attend the event.
The three authors: Tope Apoola (Times of The Supermen), Temitayo Ilori (Doom’s wing; The Legend of Tellam) and Oyindamola Affinih (Two gone, still counting) took time to read portions of their respective books accompanied with good comments and questions from the audience.
The event later snowballed into a kind of debate during the forum section anchored by Peter Sunday (literary café). It centered on imagination and knowledge; which is superior? After different contributions in support of the two positions, most people came to the conclusion that, they are both important and cannot be separated just like a hen and her egg.
The challenge of publishing and distribution cum marketing was also addressed from the individual perspectives of the authors present. While Oyindamola lamented the seemingly lack of publishers’ and sellers’ interest in writers’ work, Temitayo made no pretence of his disinterest in them in preference for self publishing (regardless of its challenges); giving the author full control of his/her work (intellectual property). Curiously, Tope said ‘I simply don’t care … I’ll just see them as ignorant people (who don’t read)’.
In the end, the audience and even the organisers got more than they bargained for as each person went home with a free and autographed copy of ‘Doom’s wing; The Legend of Tellam’ and the two poets who participated in the poetry competition also got an autographed copy of ‘Two gone, still counting’ free. The authors also took turns to present copies of their book to Rise Library.
With such efforts, we can begin to see a remarkable improvement in the reading habit of Nigerians.
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| Goke - Moderator of the event |
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| The 3 books |
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| A participant making a comment |
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| A poet reading his poem |
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| Literary Cafe crew at the event |
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| The 3 authors |
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| Tope reading from his book |
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| Tayo reading from his book |
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| Another poet receiving his gift from Oyindamola |
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| Tayo presenting a copy of Doom's wing to RISE |
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| Tope presenting a copy of Times of the Supermen to RISE |
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| Oyindamola presenting a copy of Two gone, still counting to RISE |
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| Oyindamola reading from her book |
