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Teju Cole on Tomas Transtromer, winner, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2011

"There’s a kind of helplessness in many of the poems, the sense of being pulled along by something irresistible and invisible. There are moments of tart social commentary, a sense of justice wounded (“the slum must be inside you”—for many years, Tranströmer worked as a psychologist at an institution for juvenile offenders). There is also in the poems a kind of motionlessness that is indistinguishable from terrific speed, in the same way Arvo Pärt’s music can sound fast and slow at the same time. It’s a good thing I’m unembarrassable about influence, because I realize now how many of Tranströmer’s concepts I have hidden away in my own work...The satisfaction, the pleasure, the comfort one takes in these poems comes from the way they seem to have pre-existed us. Or perhaps, to put it another way, the magic lies in their ability to present aspects of our selves long buried under manners, culture, and language. The poems remember us and, if we are perfectly still, give us a chance to catch sight of ourselves."

Joseph Omotayo on Roses and Bullets

"Literature is good for one thing: it gives equal honour to people to tell their stories. In narrating a story, they are different sides each sub-story presents various individuals. Roses and Bullets shouldn't be condemned for being reflective of the stitches of wounds that scar the bodies of many. My fray though is on the stickiness of a region'sliterature to one side of a war that has been so written to wear and tear. There are other issues people are not talking about. Out of the large heart of the proponent of the war are streaks of the selfishness to rule his people at the cost of guns and gore. There were scores of fragile lots who would never be the same again after the war. There were lots too who sacrificed everything for the war they least know about."

Everything was fine except the fact that he kept on calling Ginika, the main character, Ganika

Introducing Zazugist, the first full pidgin news site in Nigeria. 

"Anyway na so I open door for Zazu. If you see wetin this my old hungry friend deck put for body and the scent wey follow am, you go understand say government money na Sosorobia. Kai, I begin weep for inside my belle. This na parrot wey I dey grind groundnut for, na im dey talk of dollars and pounds for my face.Anyway, im say im get one kain runs for me and im and some other ogbonge people, from London to America to Jungle City. Say im don serve both dead and living presidos and since im wan begin work for im Six-year term agenda, say im want position imself for internet well well. I come tell am say, well if you want make we do anything for you, our hands suppose clean o and we nor suppose get skeleton for wardrobe. Na so Zazu para for me, kinikan kinikan, me I think say im na murderer abi im na willywilly wey go get skeleton. Anyway sha I come cool am down say wetin im want. Im say im wan begin give naija people, African people and the whole world  gist for pidgin. And im want website wey every-every na pidgin. My brothers and sisters and congregation, na so we see ourselves for this place wey im name Zazugist o. So I don move comot from my old neigbourhood to join Zazu my friend build we country with pidgin o. Make una pray for us o."

Scholarly Research and Social Networking  in Publishing Perspectives

 Social media has the potential to change the overall perception of the inputs and outputs of scholarly research. True?

Robert Coover's "Vampire" in the latest Online Edition of Granta

"He sets off one day on an arduous journey to a remote kingdom, wondering, as the weeks pass, about the wisdom of it. Even the purpose. When he launched forth, he was sure he had a purpose, but by the time he reaches the primitive mountain village at the edge of the wilderness, he can no longer remember it. In fact, he is not certain this was his original destination. Wasn’t he going to the barber shop? It was summertime when he left, but now it is winter and the dead of night and he is alone and dressed only in his golf shirt and orange-and-green checked Bermuda shorts. He is met by villagers, huddled in heavy furs, who stare at him with expressions of dread and horror. He’s a friendly guy, even among strangers, always ready to buy the first round, and he puts his hand out and flashes them his best smile, but they shriek and shrink back, crossing themselves theatrically."