Applause
for Burma Boy
By BEN BRIGGS
Sunday,
April 13, 2008
The idyllic setting and the interesting bibliophiles at the
venue could make a writer’s day any day. Biyi Bandele,
the British-based Nigerian writer, was thrilled by the reception
he got from African Book Group, a reading club consisting
mainly of foreign women either married to Nigerians or resident
in the country.
It wasn’t originally in his schedule of what to do when
he arrives Nigeria for a reading tour, organized by the British
Council, to promote his latest book, Burma Boy, but Badele
could not resist the invitation when the reading club invited
him to its weekly reading at UPDC Estate, Lekki, Lagos, Thursday
April 3.
African Book Group was formed thirty years ago by the wife
of a former Swedish ambassador to Nigeria, who felt that reading
literary works would be the best for Nigerian women. The women,
who hail mostly from the West, meet once in a week to discuss
literature.
Marla Kunfermann, an American, moderated the session. After
a buffet, she asked member present (over twenty) to introduce
themselves, before the visiting writer was asked to introduce
himself.
Biyi, a novelist, playwright, screenplay writer and stage
director, told the audience that writing is his job (unlike
some other African writers in the West who combine it with
other engagements. He was born in the north, but his parents
are from Abeokuta in Ogun State.
Biyi, who wrote his first novel as an undergraduate at Ife,
had difficulty publishing it, but when he travelled to the
UK, a publishing opportunity beckoned, and he soon became
a published author.
When he wrote his second novel at the age of seventeen, his
London publisher asked him to rewrite the script, but he preferred
to retain its originality, and, thus, had his way.
Asked if he could write about Nigeria perfectly while residing
in London, the writer saw no hindrance in doing so. He was
asked to talk about how he finished his latest novel, and
he informed the audience that the first draft of the novel
was seven hundred pages, but his editor advised him to do
away with some parts, which he did, cutting the pages by almost
half. “What I write is normally media rex,” he
told the audience on his writing style.
Asked if he carried out a research before writing the novel,
the writer said it took him three years of research to arrive
at the background of the novel. He told them, as stated in
the novel, that after World War II, the Japanese confessed
that the blacks who fought on the side of the British were
the most formidable fighters, which nullified the mistaken
impression then that blacks were second-rate to the whites.
The author confessed that when the cover of the book came
out, with a man wielding a gun, he registered his displeasure,
but when he showed it to some of his friends, most of them
approved of it; hence it was retained.
Asked why he chose the title of the book, Burma Boy, the author
said he just wanted a simple title that would reflect the
Burma experience. As a kid, he was thrilled as his father,
who fought for the British army, regaled him with the tale
the war in Burma.
His dad came back from the war looking “messed up”
and was fortunate to have a good family that looked after
him. “Burma was the most Brutal theatre of the war,”
he said.
Bandele submitted that if his dad hadn’t fought in the
war, he wouldn’t have been inspired to write it, adding
that his late father never talked about the bad aspect of
the war.
The author, who said he is conscious of his audience, remarked:
“I work very hard to be accessible without being expositional”.
He responded to the enquiry on the extent of reality in the
novel, saying it is mainly fiction.
So far, the responses from his readers have been overwhelming
in the novel. He is inspired by his interactions with people
and from what he sees in the street, in writing his works.
The writer, after the interactive session with African Book
Group, signed books for members who bought copies.
Sponsored by British Council, Bandele’s book tour took
him to four British Council’s offices in Lagos, Kano,
Abuja and Port Harcourt. Burma Boy is published and distributed
in Nigeria by Farafina.
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