Unigwe, Onuzo feature at Edinburgh Book festival

Unigwe, who presented her book ‘Night Dancer,’ yesterday will also chair a session with Patrick Ness, Carnegie Medal winner and author of famous children’s books, ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy and ‘A Monster Calls’ on Monday. They will address a conference about censorship and freedom of speech. She told Bookshelf via Facebook that for any author it […]

Unigwe, who presented her book ‘Night Dancer,’ yesterday will also chair a session with Patrick Ness, Carnegie Medal winner and author of famous children’s books, ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy and ‘A Monster Calls’ on Monday. They will address a conference about censorship and freedom of speech.

She told Bookshelf via Facebook that for any author it is a privilege to be invited to such a high profile festival. “It validates the work that you do, the fact that people are interested in it.

On the event benefitting Nigerian writers at home she said, “I have no idea how the selection is made, so I do not know that there is particular interest in any one part of the world. I suppose that the disadvantage writers at home might have is visibility. If you or your work is not on the radar of the selection committee, then it is unlikely that you will be invited.”

In 2003, Unigwe won the BBC Short Story Award. In 2004, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Award and she was nominated for the Caine Prize (the African Booker Prize). She debuted in 2005 with the novel De feniks [The Phoenix]. Fata Morgana was published in 2007 and nominated for the Spiegel Prize.

Her latest, ‘Night Dancer’ focuses on Mma who has just buried her mother, and now   alone. She has been left everything, but she’s also inherited her mother’s bad name. A bold, brash woman, the only thing her mother refused to discuss was her past. Why did she flee her family and bring her daughter to a new town when she was a baby? What was she escaping from? Abandoned now, Mma has no knowledge of her father or her family – but she is desperate to find out. ‘Night Dancer’ is a powerful and moving novel about the relationship between mothers and daughters, about the bonds of family, about knowing when to fulfill your duty, and when you must be brave enough not to. Presenting a vista of Nigeria over the past half century, it is a vibrant and heartfelt exploration of one woman’s search for belonging.

One whom many are looking forward to is an encounter with the prolific young author, Chibundu Onuzo.

The budding writer read last Thursday for Amnesty as well as rendered a poem by the Burmese nationalist, Aung San Suu Kyi. Yesterday she spoke about her book ‘The Spider King’s Daughter’ and was also involved in a writers’ session with Italian writer, Matias Nespolo, author of ‘7 Ways To Kill A Cat’.

Onuzo’s tale is a heartening one for young writers. The Nigerian-born author wrote her first novel when she was just 17 and secured a two-book deal with Faber at 19, before being published at 21. Her debut, ‘The Spider King’s Daughter’, follows the deepening love affair between two teenagers in Lagos: Abike, the haughty daughter of an ultra-wealthy businessman, and Runner G, a roadside hawker whose father’s suspicious death has plunged him from riches to rags.

But it slowly turns from a love story to a gripping tale of exploitation and revenge. The ending is bleak and Onuzo is cautious about the economic future for young people in Nigeria. “I don’t know that things are happening fast enough for people who are young and in their 20s,” she says. “Jobs are being created sparingly, development is coming but it’s at an uneven pace.”

Onuzo told Bookshelf that Nigerian participation in the fiesta will bring writing set in Nigeria and with Nigerian themes to a new audience. “But then again, my event is only one small event. It’s the aggregate of many such events by many different Nigerian authors that makes the difference.”

On whether participating at the event was a given for her, she says she didn’t really dream about going for literary festivals. “Before you’re published you don’t really know what they entail. When you start getting invited to them though, you discover they’re quite fun and good for meeting writers and readers.”

Teju Cole is also expected at the event this year.