Bøger af Jude Idada

Exotica Celestica is a collection of poems that celebrates the marriage of the physical and the spiritual. It seeks to capture the unique amalgam of human emotions through the lens of a compassionate celestial force. It is a poetic commentary on the emotional phases of mankind; anger, hate, sex, revenge, remorse, hopelessness, forgiveness, sacrifice, tolerance, inspiration, submission and love. It captures the joys and challenges of the mundane as is evident in everyday life, as much as it espouses the language of love both as a pure aspiration of the emotion and an expression of the carnal desires of the flesh. It heralds a yearning to understand the mystical as it exists as the unseen hand of the celestial in the affairs of mankind. It enquires; is the basis of pleasure in the expression of pure love a thread that connects us to the core of existence? Is the seminal love which burns in the heat of fleeting lust a mirror image of mankind as beings made in the full image of the Divine? Is our sensuality and sexuality not only facts of nature but actually the language of the Creator? Are we mere pawns in the game of life or beings in actual control of our destinies? This is a collection that explores the complexities of mankind in full awareness of the entirety of its faculties and its power therein.

ODUDUWA, KING OF THE EDOS is a play which explores the true identity of an ancient African King who was believed amongst numerous competing historical accounts to have come down from the heavens (skies) to found the present day Yoruba people of South Western Nigeria. It attempts to draw congruence between mythical accounts of his origin which are found in the oral traditions of the Edos of present day Mid-Western Nigeria, those of the Yorubas of Ile-Ife in particular, and Western Nigeria in general, while imagining an explanation as to the divergence in their accounts. It seeks to answer the questions: was Oduduwa a god that ruled men, the fi¬rst creation of the supreme God, an exiled Edo prince or was he a mere mortal whose leadership qualities became legendary and thus exalted him to the status of the progenitor of the Yorubas? Set in the kingdoms of Igodomigodo and Ile-Ife, it journeys across time into the more recent pre-colonial Benin city and Ile-Ife, while using well rounded characters, loftily crafted language, deep cultural mores, scintillating music, dance, fast paced action and intrigue in bringing to life a captivating period in the history of the Yorubas and Edos.

A Box of Chocolates is a collection of short stories that transports the reader into the lives of various individuals, trapped in different psycho-social situations, who require serendipity and a touch of the spiritual in order to obtain freedom. In the box are eighteen chocolates; each one carefully made, painstakingly wrapped and methodically packed. Each chocolate with a unique taste, each one representing a different story. In the box, sits a plethora of colours, a myriad of aspirations, a landscape of experiences. It travels across the fields of love, hatred, oppression, corruption, homosexuality, AIDS, rebellion, spiritualism, slavery, migration, life and ultimately death as it seeks to capture in one snapshot, the reality of the helplessness of mankind when confronted with the unpredictable nature of Fate.

In the cold climes of Toronto there is a suicide and in the hot tropics of Lagos, there is yet another suicide. Both deaths fueled by family betrayal. Therese and Andrew Sciorra are survivors of the first suicide; Osasu and Nosa Eweka are survivors of the second suicide. The lives of these four intertwine in an avalanche of curdling blood, painful secrets, unforgivable sins, unbridled desires and redeeming love. From the sweltering back streets of Lagos to the freezing avenues of Toronto, this riveting trilogy will leave you turning pages on end.