A 4-day bookstore that charmed buyers

A bookstore at KABAFEST, which operated for just four days during the festival, provided buyers with a worthy intellectual buffet. The story of the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival (KABAFEST) wouldn’t be complete without its bookstore. Slammed into one of the smallest rooms in Gusau Institute, it took me to a new world and became […]

A bookstore at KABAFEST, which operated for just four days during the festival, provided buyers with a worthy intellectual buffet.

The story of the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival (KABAFEST) wouldn’t be complete without its bookstore. Slammed into one of the smallest rooms in Gusau Institute, it took me to a new world and became the one experience I came out of, bearing physical evidence. 

Labo Yari’s 1983 novel, ‘Climate of Corruption’ was one of the first books that caught my attention. I read the novel when I was about twelve years old in a countryside part of Zaria, at a time when watching TV meant waiting for NTA’s official opening time of four o’clock (and of course Sesame Street), when reading the Pacesetters Series, works of writers like James Hadley Chase, Nick Carter, killmaster’s spy series (published from 1964 until 1990), Elechi Amadi’s 1966 ‘The Concubine’, Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’ and more was the popular way to travel to other worlds. These were the memories unearthed by ‘Climate of Corruption’.     

I have a longstanding habit of sitting in a bookshop (even without a dime) and scheming for that future purchase. But this bookstore at KABAFEST ran on a four-day life span (at least, until the next festival) from July 5th to 8th, so there was no waiting, no plotting, only a careful plan. Why careful? Because there are books that tempted to the bone and had what it took to empty my pockets, and because a POS was readily available (smart people), my bank account too. Pray, every bookworm knows books, especially those made in Nigeria, cost a handsome fortune these days as a result of the present exchange rate, so I was in for real soul searching before each buy and my next words here would explain why.

Leila Aboulela’s books were the first tempters. It didn’t take more than a whisper for me to decide her latest novel, ‘The Kindness of Enemies’ would be on my personal bookshelf. You see, Aboulela is one Sudanese writer that has made an intriguing mark in the literary world. She was the first to win the Caine Prize for African Writing at inception. Also, ‘The Kindness of Enemies’ was inspired by the life of Imam Shamil, who united the tribes of the Caucasus to fight against Russian Imperial expansion. You see? I consider myself a student of history and here’s this historical fiction, written by that same woman, one of those who sat in the festival’s many panels.   

Again, sometimes you go on Facebook, and find people asking how to get Richard Ali’s re-issued ‘City of Memories’. The festival was the perfect spot, well, maybe next to that cute bookstore in Abuja’s Art and Craft Village, and then of course, Tony Kan’s ‘The Carnivorous City’. I certainly wanted to know what was there in Lagos that could eat me up, just like that. Was it the traffic?  Talking about that, there was another novel in that static traffic of books, all waiting to be owned, coveted…Lola Shoneyin’s ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’. Okay, I knew some of the secrets in this woman’s 2011 novel, but I needed to own it. What good is such a secret if I don’t own it? 

So, there was so much buzz (well, controversy, really) over Bob Dylan’s winning the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.  A songwriter!? Some people I know screamed then. Well, there was his book right before me at this event, titled ‘Tarantula’, and noted as the poetic songwriter’s only fictional work. Now that was the sound of a POS spitting receipts.

There was more, and soon after, I got out of KABAFEST’s bookstore, fast, to scheme for next year’s purchase.