ISBN 9789780231378
Pages 168
Dimensions 203 x 127 mm
Published 2004
Publisher Malthouse Press, Nigeria
Format Paperback

God's Medicine Men & Other Stories

by Tanure Ojaide

These ten short stories, of varying length, intensity and focus, are the first by Ojaide, published in the genre. The title story concerns the spiritual and sexual illusions, confusions and realities to which a young Nigerian girl, the daughter of a pastor, and the people in her milieu, are subjected. In a story entitled 'I Used to Drive a Mercedes', the author satirises the life of a military general, Alfred, and his materialistic and glamour-seeking wife. He juxtaposes the wealth and position of Alfred's youth and the pinnacle of his achievements: the purchase of a Mercedes, with the dishevelled madness of his old age: by which time his car has been destroyed and his wife has left him. Another story, 'The BookCase', is about a well- educated and vivacious woman's efforts to publish aground breaking book. In what becomes an all-consuming struggle, she ends up paying for her ambition with her life, and only achieves recognition posthumously.
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Review

"...provides a window into the soul of a Nigerian Society caught up in the thoes of social change"

World Literature Today

About the Author

Tanure Ojaide

A renowned poet, Tanure Ojaide has won major national and international poetry awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region (1987), the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award (1988), twice the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry (1988 and 1997), and thrice the Association of Nigerian Authors' Poetry Prize (1988, 1994 and 2004. In 2016 Ojaide was awarded the the prestigious Fonlon-Nichols Award at the 42nd annual African Literature Association (ALA) conference in Atlanta.

For Tanure Ojaide, "the creative writer is never an airplant, but someone who is grounded in some specific place. It is difficult to talk of many writers without their identification with place. Every writer's roots are very important in understanding his or her work." He has read from his poetry in different fora in Africa, Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico, The Netherlands, and the United States. Some of his poems have been translated into Chinese, Dutch, Spanish and French. He is currently the Frank Porter Graham Professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Visit Tanure Ojaide's website here: http://www.tanureojaide.com/

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