Bøger af Nduka Otiono

"In this collection, the anecdotal melds with the experiential.... We encounter verses that serve as a template for the lyrical, the deployment of narratives and folksy idioms that are enchanting. [The] journey motif flutters from Nigeria to Canada, as the author attempts to bridge borders...Otiono offers us a poetic sacrament."-The Sunday Sun "Nduka Otiono is a poet of the musical word...His erudition blends seamlessly with the spoken sacred word of the local lore in poetry that is at once memorable and sophisticated. He wrenches love from the Nigerian nightmare with an uncommon touch at the instance and distance of an alien shore. He breaks bold ground in borderless intercourse, a noble feat that conjures up the landscape and dreamscape of Joseph Brodsky and Pablo Neruda."-Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, award-winning author of God of Poetry "Here are poems to enter into and live in and live by. The personal, the communal, the planetary inhabit these cosmic collages that stylistically stride from oral structures to the architectonics of the written. Nduka Otiono's poetic stance is that of defiant disruption and truth-telling. Read this book and feel the pulse."-Uche Nduka, award-winning author of fourteen volumes of poetry

PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT HIDES WITH A KNIFE* * * * * * * * * * * "A respectable collection of short stories written in elegant and piquant style and demonstrates profound insight into human psychology."- Jury, ANA/Spectrum Prize "With this first collection of short stories, Nduka Otiono takes us on an impressive, multi-textual journey of resourcefulness and creativity that combines the best of the oral and scribal in Nigeria literary culture: traditional storytelling strategies and conventional narrative forms are overlaced with a fragmentary, postmodern reflexivity; the voice propels the pen, only to get trapped in the tape recorder."- Harry Garuba, poet and Professor, University of Cape Town, South Africa "...a synthesis of the archetypal forms of the oral tradition with modern urban realism."- D.S. Izevbaye, Emeritus Professor of English and Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters "The issue in Nigerian fiction is no longer that of good and evil. Our experience in the postmodern and postcolonial times has driven us to beyond those fringes. As The Night Hides with a Knife has clearly symbolized, the issue is that of the beautiful and the ugly, the dark and the light, a distinction which must remain foregrounded in the consciousness of every Nigerian in order to remind us of our vanishing beauty and dream as a people."- Frank Uche Mowah, writer and former Head of Department of English, Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria "...challenges the stereotype notion that modern African prose lacks experimental forms. The...collection defies, and indeed straddles genre classification."- Monitor Review "Several years of craftsmanship have transformed the ten short stories in this collection into gems of chiseled prose...In these stories, we see the dreams of an entire generation reaching up for the lights or sinking into the fetid swamp of the nation's grave."- The Guardian "There is...a deeply autobiographical tenor in the short stories, for they tend to proclaim the geography of Otiono's times... The greatest achievement...is his deep and significant power of observation, in the surprising detail of his narrative."- Vanguard "The Night Hides with a Knife is a collection of familiar and somewhat absurd experiences...Nduka Otiono is unique because his exploration of experiences is stylized. In essence, he is a stylist at heart: manner matters a lot to him."- TheNews Magazine "Otiono's painstaking assemblage of the loom of existence with its strands drawn from the nation's socio-political realities is the staple of everyday life... By giving free reign to his imagination and inventiveness and by drawing on the rich and time-tested resources of the oral tradition and heritage of African literature, Otiono makes The Night Hides with a Knife an irresistible work in the narrative genre."- Weekend Times "Otiono's ability to capture true life experiences manifests in stories like 'A Will to Survive', 'Wings of Rebellion'..."- Sunday Times "These stories are experimental, displaying an awareness of modern currents and a delicate narrative sensitivity to autochthonous structures... Part of the assets [the author] displays are his sharp, smooth-flowing prose and his sense of adventure and experimentation...He is at his best when exploiting the structures of oral performance."- Wumi Raji, author of Long Dreams in Short Chapters: Essays in African Postcolonial Literary, Cultural and Political Criticisms.

The poems in this selection are drawn from Otiono's two pulished collections, Voices in the Rainbow, and Love in a Time of Nightmares, and includes previously unpublished new poems. Peter Midgley's introduction contextualizes Otiono's work within the frame of diaspora and newer critical frames like Afropolitanism.