BAYO ADEBOWALE’S LATEST HOT POETRY BOOK IS OUT! -THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A POETRY BOOK LIKE THIS ON AFRICA BEFORE! -GET YOUR COPY NOW!

Friday, February 24, 2012
BAYO ADEBOWALE’S LATEST GREAT POETRY BOOK IS OUT ! -“AFRICAN MELODY: A POETIC EXPOSITION OF THE AFRICAN ESSENCE” ! – GET YOUR COPY NOW ! -IT’S HISTORIC AND THERE HAS NEVER HAS BEEN ANY POETRY BOOK LIKE THIS BEFORE ON AFRICA!

Friday, February 24, 2012
BAYO ADEBOWALE’S LATEST GREAT POETRY BOOK IS OUT ! -“AFRICAN MELODY: A POETIC EXPOSITION OF THE AFRICAN ESSENCE” ! – GET YOUR COPY NOW ! -IT’S HISTORIC AND THERE HAS NEVER HAS BEEN ANY POETRY BOOK LIKE THIS BEFORE ON AFRICA!

>BAYO ADEBOWALE-A GREAT AFRICAN WRITER-A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

>

from africanliterature.wordpress.com BAYO ADEBOWALE,EXTREME RIGHT,WITH OLOYE AFE BABALOLA ATI IYAAFIN YEYE AKILIMALI FUNUA OLADE (ABOVE)

BAYO ADEBOWALE:BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
By Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade

Bayo Adebowale, poet,novelist,short story writer,critic, teacher and librarian,was born in Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, on 6th June, 1944,to a peasant farmer and traditional drummer, Alagba Ayanlade Oladipupo Akangbe Adebowale. His mother, Madam Abigael Ayannihun Atunwa Adebowale is a traditional rara chanter and dancer,who hails from the neighbouring Apon Onilu Village,Ibadan, Oyo State.

Bayo Adebowale attended St. Andrew’s Kindergarten School at Kufi I Village, and St. Andrew’s Senior Primary School, Bamgbola, Igbo-Elerin District of Ibadan, where he obtained his Grade A Primary School Leaving Certificate in December, 1955. Thereafter, he was admitted to the Local Authjority Secondary Modern School, Aperin, Ibadan, between 1956 and 1958. In 1959,he became a pupil teacher at St. Mathias Primary School, Busogboro,Oluyole Local Government Area, Ibadan. The need to be trained as a teacher took him to Ilesa where he was admitted to St Peter’s Grade III Teacher College between 1960 and 1961. He was headmaster of St. Michael’s Primary School,Eko-Ajala,near Ikirun, Osun State, from January 1962 to December 1964. He was transferred to head another school in 1965-St. Andrew’s Primary School, Ilawe,three miles from Ifon, Osun State.

In 1966, the year of Nigeria’s military coup,Bayo Adebowale gained admission to Baptist College, Ede for his Higher Elementary Grade II Teacher Training Programme, which he finished in 1967 with Merit in ten subjects, including English Language, English Literature and Music. At Baptist College, Ede, Adebowale’s creativity boomed. He was a College House Prefect, the Secretary Literary and Debating Society,and the Editor of the College magazine,The Echo . He was a voracious reader of English and African novels;an ardent reader of the works of great writers like Gerald Durrel,Rider H.Haggard,Jane Austen, Daniel Defoe,John Buchan,R.L. Stevenson,Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens,Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Alan Paton, Peter Abrahams and Amos Tutuola. Bayo Adebowale’s creative ebullience was kept alive as a Higher Elementary (H.E.) teacher at Baptist School, Afolabi Apasan (near Araomi Akanran)Ibadan,between d1968 and 1970 and also at Ibadan City Council Primary School, Agugu, between 1970 and 1971.

In October,1971,he was admitted to read English at the Universtiy of Ibadan, having passed his General Certificate of Education(GCE) at both the Ordinary and the Advanced levels, between 1968 and 1971. He graduated Bachelor of Arts (Hon.) English in 1974 and had his National Youth Service Corps at St. Augustine’s Teachers’ College, Lafia, Benue-Plateau State, Northern Nigeria, from July 1974 to July 1975.

Bayo Adebowale was employed as an Education Officer (English) by the Western State Public Service Commission Between August, 1975 and August 1979 when he was posted to the Government Trade Centre at Oyo as an English Instructor. But in-between, Adebowale was given admission to the University of Ibadan for his Post Graduate Diploma in Applied English Linguistics (1976) and his Master of Arts Degree in English, which he successfully completed idn December 1978. His higher educational status qualified him for employment at the Oyo State College of Education,Ilesa,where he was appointed a Lecturer I in English in September 1979. He was posted back to St. Anderew’s College(then a Campus of OYSCE Ilesa) to head the School of Arts as the Deputy Dean,in 1981. He became athe Acting Dean of the School of Arts in Oyo State College of Education,Ila-Orangun in 1987. After the creation of Osun State(out of Oyo State) in 1991,Bayo Adebowale returned to his State of origin, with other officers of Oyo State indigenes working at OYSCE Ila-Orangun and was redeployed to The Polytechnic,Ibadan where he,at various times, as a Senior Principal Lecturer,was a Head of Department, and Acting Dean, and the Deputy Rector of the Institution between 1999 and 2003. Bayo Adebowale completed his Doctor of Philosophy Programmed in Literature in English at the University of Ilorin in May,1997.

To date, Bayo Adebowale has published over one hundred short stories in magazines, journals and papers in Nigeria and abroad.He admires a lot the works of distinguished writers, in the short story genre, like Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, O. Henry,Jack London, Stephen Crane, Judith Wright, Agnus Wilson, Chinua Achebe,Eyprian Ekwensi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o,Ben Okri, A.G.S. Momodu, Rasheed Gbadamosi,Lekan Oyejide, Nadine Gordimer, Lekan Oyegoke and Danbudzo Marechera.

In 1972,Adebowale’s short story,”The River Goddess” won the Western State Festival of Arts Literary Competition, in Ibadan, Nigeria and in 2002,he edited a collection of new Nigerian short stories-Talent-involving the words of fifteen Nigerian writers,including those of Femi Osofisan, Wale Okediran, Akeem Lasisi,Lekan Oyegode, Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade,and Amos Tutuola. Adebowale’s short stories had appeared in important Anthologies like Frontiers:Nigerian Short Stories (1992)d;A Passage to Modern Cicero (2003) and Horizon Journal,University of Ibadan (1975). Adebowale’s short stories are collected in book form in Iron Hand,Girl About Town; and Book Me Down. His collection A New Life was published in 2006 by Bounty Press,Ibadan.

Over ninety per cent of Bayo Adebowale’s short stories have rural setting, and deal with local community people in Nigerian villages and hamlets. A common trend of culture runs through them, stretching into his poetry and his three full-length novels.

For Adebowale the so-called modern society has nothing to offer to communal African village life “except chaos, corruption and other manifestations of of western narcissim”. Africa,for Adebowale,is a passion. “The contemorarisation of the mystic of the African essence is an addiction”.

Bayo Adebowale exhaustively examines the theme of culture in his poetry. Village Harvest,his first book of poetry,bears testimony to this. All the fifty-eight poems in the collection discuss sceneries,seasons,people,places, experiences,events and beliefs of the rural community people. This same trend is discernible in his second book of poetry,A Night of Incantations; where Yoruba traditional incantations are broken into three broad categories, viz: Malevolent Incantations;Benevolent Incantations and Propitiatory Incantations. In 1992,Bayo Adebowale’s poem, “Perdition” won the Africa Prize in the Index on Censorship International Poetry Competition in London. Quite a good number of his poems have been anthologized in Poetry for Africa 2(United Kingdom),Index on Censorship Journal (United Kingdom),African Literature Association Bulletin(Canada);Poetry Drum (Nigeria) and Crab Orchard Review(United States of America).Adebowale’s latest collection of poems, African Melody (2008) gives a realistic literary repositioning of the African Continent and has been acknowledged as”deeply reseached and a compotently crafted work of art”.

Today, Bayo Adebowale is most well-known as a novelist. His first novel,The Virgin, has been adapted into two home videos under the titles of “The White Hankerchief” and later as a thirteen week National Television Serial under yet another tile- “The Narrow Path” -all by the Main Frame Film Organization of Lagos under the directorate of the ace Nigerian cinematographer-Tunde Kelani. Adebowale’s second novel,Out of His Mind has several tiimes also been adapted for the stage. Both novels have been used by researchers as final-year Long Essay Projects in Colleges of Education, and for the Bachelor of Artrs degree final-year research and for Master of Arts dissertations in Nigerian Universities. His third novel, Lonely Days is probably his most ambitious literary endeavour to date. The novel predictably deals with an important aspect of the African culture-widowhood- and has its setting, predictably also, in African rural environment. Adebowale has two other yet to be published novels:Sweetheart and Lone Voice Bayo Adebowale has been described variously as “an advocate of the grassroots people”,”a village novelist” and “a protagonist of the African culture and tradition”and “Africa’s Charles Dickens”.

His pet project, The African Heritage Research Library (at Adeyipo Village, Lagelu Local Government Area,Ibadan,Oyo State,Nigeria) is the first rural community-based African studies research library on the Continent. The objectives of the Centre are (i) to serve the educational needs of students, researchers, scholars, documentalists, and archivists in Africa and all over the world;and (ii) to serve the socio-cultural needs of the local community people:peasant farmers,local artisans, craftsmen and women in African villages and hamlets. Adebowale’s Centre at Adeyipo Village, now incorporates the cultural aspect of the life of the people with the introduction of a Music of Africa Auditorium,a Medicinal Herbs Garden and a Talking Drum Museum.
The establishment of the African Heritage Research Library and Cultural Centre (AHRLC) has helped a lot to enhance the quantity and quality of Bayo Adebowale’s literary output.The African Heritage Research Library has a formidable Board of Advisors which include eminent scholars and writers all over the world like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o,Elechi Amadi, Niyi Osundare,Bernth Lindfors,Akinwumi Isola;Femi Osofisan;Sam. A. Adewoye,Lekan Oyegoke, Tony Marinho and Niara Sudarkasa.
Ads by Google
Whitmore Publishing
Book publisher seeking new authors No publishing fee. We pay you.
WhitmorePublishing.com

Tags: BAYO ADEBOWALE:A GREAT AFRICAN WRITER, BLACK NOVELISTS, BLACK WRITERS

This entry was posted on February 9, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under AFRICAN FILMS, AFRICAN FILMS BASED ON NOVELS, AFRICAN LITERATURE(GENERAL), AFRICAN NOVELS, AFRICAN SHORT STORIES, AFRICAN WRITERS, BAYO ADEBOWALE:A GREAT AFRICAN WRITER, BLACK WRITERS, NIGERIAN LITERATURE, POST-COLONIAL AFRICAN LITERATURE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

THE VIRGIN AND THE NARROW PATH MOVIE NIGERIAN FORUM, FORUMS, SOCIAL NETWORK, NIGERIA JOB FORUM, BLOG, WEBSITE, SITE, NOLLYWOOD, ONLINE MESSAGE BOARD-BASED ON BAYO ADEBOWALE’S GREAT NOVEL ON VIRGINITY!

{{desc}}

via THE VIRGIN AND THE NARROW PATH MOVIE NIGERIAN FORUM, FORUMS, SOCIAL NETWORK, NIGERIA JOB FORUM, BLOG, WEBSITE, SITE, NOLLYWOOD, ONLINE MESSAGE BOARD.

COMPARE THIS WHITE MAN’S REVIEW IN VARIETY WITH THE NIGERIAN REVIEW OF “THE NARROW PATH” BASED ON BAYO ADEBOWALE’S GREAT BOOK “THE VIRGIN”

from variety.com
Variety Review of The Narrow Path:

The Narrow Path
(Nigeria)
By ROBERT KOEHLER
A Mainline Film and Television Prods. presentation (International sales: Mainline Film and Television Prods., Lagos.) Produced by Tunde Kelani. Directed, written by Tunde Kelani.

With: Sola Asedeko, Seyi Fasuyi, Eniola Olaniyan, Joke Muyiwa, Olu Okekanye, Ayo Badmus, Segun Adefila, Khabirat Kafidipe.

For a film that includes two rapes and the attempted torching of an entire village, Tunde Kelani’s “The Narrow Path” extends the filmmaker’s consistent ability to deliver low-budget films that have an affable, often jaunty, tone. As always with the leading voice in Nigeria’s independent video feature movement, storytelling takes the form of a fable — in this case, about a courtship that threatens to collapse before the wedding night, and the strife that ensues; events lead to a happy ending with a politically progressive message. A sure hitmaker locally and in West African venues, pic deserves fest programmers’ attention worldwide.
As important as Ousmane Sembene and Abderrhamane Sissako are to presenting African cinema beyond the continent, Kelani is arguably more influential than these two at home, and has played a key role in establishing one of Africa’s few real film industries in Nigeria (often dubbed “Nollywood”). Production, unlike classical Francophone co-productions, is largely homegrown, and with primary concern for playing to local auds.
While Kelani is hardly in Sembene’s or Sissako’s class as an artist, the sense of village life, relationships and politics in “The Narrow Path” equals and may well surpass a similar setting portrayed in Sembene’s recent village tale, “Moolaade.”
Facing the prospect of an ersatz bidding war among suitors in various nearby villages, pretty Awero (Sola Asedeko) whittles the candidates down to clumsy hunter Odejimi (Seyi Fasuyi) and effete rich man Lapade (Ayo Badmus), and settles on Odejimi. Dauda (Segun Adefila), a shady but charismatic fellow from the city (as Lagos is referred to here), seems ineffectual in his come-ons to Awero, until he rapes her one night in a remote corner of the village.
Odejimi, who has already had a somewhat comical faceoff with Lapade, accidentally shoots his rival in the jungle while hunting. Although no one buys blowhard Lapade’s true claim that Odejimi shot him, the incident has tainted Odejimi’s romantic vision of courtship and marriage. A culturally worse discovery on the wedding night sours him on life with his bride-to-be.
Kelani applies a fluid and casual filmmaking hand that invites the viewer to participate in the village folderol. Evincing a Shakespearean influence, dramatic conflict (men from the two villages are on the verge of war by the final act) is preceded by jolly comedy that introduces likable characters who simply want to lead happy lives, with a narrative leading inevitably to reconciliation conducted by women.
Just this side of annoyingly broad, the perfs Kelani draws out of his actors fully support the fable’s basic nature.
If there’s a continuing problem with Kelani’s movies, it’s a tendency for incredibly insipid, intrusive and low-grade synthesizer music on the soundtrack (by Seun Owoaje). Locations in Nigeria and Benin are used naturally, never for picture-postcard effect.
Camera (color/B&W, DV), Kelani, Lukaan Abdulrahman; editors, Mumin Wale Kelani, Frank Anore; music, Seun Owoaje; production designer, Kehinde Oyedepo; costume designer, Abiola Atanda; sound, Abimbola Ogunsanya, Fatai Izebe; assistant director, Olu Okekanye. Reviewed on videodisc, Los Angeles, Feb. 18, 2007. (In Pan African Film Festival.) Running time: 93 MIN.

Variety is striving to present the most thorough review database. To report inaccuracies in review credits, please click here. We do not currently list below-the-line credits, although we hope to include them in the future. Please note we may not respond to every suggestion. Your assistance is appreciated.
Date in print: Mon., Apr. 2, 2007, Weekly

Links posted in this story:
Abimbola Ogunsanya,
Abiola Atanda,
Ayo Badmus,
Eniola Olaniyan,
Fatai Izebe,
Frank Anore,
Joke Muyiwa,
Kehinde Oyedepo,
Khabirat Kafidipe,
Lukaan Abdulrahman,
Moolaade,
Mumin Kelani,
Olu Okekanye,
Ousmane Sembene,
Segun Adefila,
Seun Owoaje,
Seyi Fasuyi,
Sola Asedeko,
Tunde Kelani

——————————————————————————–

BAYO ADEBOWALE’S GREAT AFRICAN NOVEL “THE VIRGIN” HAS BEEN MADE INTO A FILM (FOR THE SECOND TIME) BY TUNDE KELANI
FROM naijarules.com
Who stole the ‘purity’ of this innocent girl?
——————————————————————————–
By Akeem Lasisi
Published: Friday, 4 Jan 2008
Tunde Kelani’s latest film, The Narrow Path, which he adapted from Bayo Adebowale’s novel, The Virgin, takes Nollywood closer to the ideal. One query that many Nigerian films have not been able to answer borders on how appropriately they have been able to represent or portray the realities of our society. But somehow, Tunde Kelani once again cleverly answers that in The Narrow Path, one of the films that kicked off the 2007 movie season in the country. Only that – well, if observing this matters at all – the 1: 38 minutes movie takes the viewer to some 100 years back in time.
Asedeko (Awero)
The Narrow Path is the story of Awero, a village belle, who, by the virtue of her unadulterated beauty, becomes the toast of several men who want her hand in marriage. At least, three men – hunter Odejinmi, moneybags Lapade and Dauda the sex monger – persistently express their desires accordingly.
Set in Orita Village, where the mud-house home of Awero’s father, Jibosa, (played by a veteran actor, Olu Okekanye) and his wife become a sort of Mecca where men pay homage to secure the heart of their daughter, actions move to Agbede and Aku, which are Odejinmi’s and Lapade’s villages respectively.
As each of Odejinmi and Lapade push their desires to have Awero, (Sola Asedeko) they clash openly occasionally. The two rivals adopt different approaches to achieve their desires: Odejinmi exercises restraint, preaching love to Awero, while Lapade is eager to flaunt his wealth. Yet, unknown to the two, there is Dauda, the Lagos boy, who is also surreptitiously enticing the lady with ‘city gifts’ such as Saturday Night Powder, Nku Cream and a big mirror. Along the line, Dauda – played by the leader of Crown Troupe of Africa, Dauda Adefila – forces Awero to an unholy and abominable bed where he rapes her and forcefully ‘disflowers’ her. Although he runs back to Lagos immediately afterwards, it is the abominable act that fast-tracks the conflict that pushes Orita and Agbede villages to the very narrow path of war.
The forced exit of Awero’s innocence is the beginning of a suspense and dramatic irony on which the success of the film largely rests. After the Awero family has given Odejinmi a nod, the process leading to the marriage becomes swift. Odejinmi endlessly dreams about the first night – which every villager is also eager to celebrate, as is the custom – when he will go into Awero and turn her into a woman. In the months that precede the traditional wedding, however, misery, depression and nightmares have become the lot of Awero, who cannot imagine the shame that will befall her and her parents when everyone gets to know that she is ‘a broken pot’.
Although The Narrow Path centrally celebrates marital processes in the traditional Yoruba setting, Kelani configures the plot in such a manner that every aspect of it drips with a message. It is a film in which costuming and language tell a story, for instance. Awero and her friends – among whom is Kabirat Kafidipe, popularly called Arapa-re-Gagan, based on the role she played in Kelani’s Saworo Ide – tie only wrappers round their virgin bodies. They don’t wear bras, for example. Yet, the wrappers are tied so tight that the girls feel safe, thus reminding the viewer of the days of guarded innocence.
Kelani further scores a point in his casting. He parades the likes of Okekanye, Seyi Fasuyi, Eniola Olaniyan, Joke Muyiwa, Lere Paimo, Olofa Ina, Mama Rainbow and Ayo Badmus who are able to blend into the rural environment of the film. Where he needs a clownish sanitary inspector, he goes for Papa Ajasco. And where a city girl/education officials required, he goes for Bukky Wright.
It is a good thing that The Narrow Path is subtitled. But there seems to be a puzzle here. The film is rendered in English. Yet, it is sub-titled in English. It is true that Bayo Adebowale’s novel, The Virgin, which is the parent script, is in English. But even if The Narrow Path has to be in the same language, why not subtitle it in Yoruba or French?
Also, in the film, Dauda wears a dreadlock. Some may want to argue that dreadlocks were not a popular sight at the time the story is depicting.
Although The Narrow Path also scores a point in bringing out the versatility of the several ‘Yoruba’ actors and actresses who now act in the ‘English’ movie, an actor such as Badmus fails to totally escapes the cross of mannerism even in his deformed state in the movie. At some points, his gesticulations are too close to what one had seen from him in other films he had acted in.
Beyond such observations, however, The Narrow Path, despite its moderate budget and the simplicity in its setting, fulfils the ambition of any standard film in terms of the significance of its message and entertainment value.
Who stole the purity of this innocent girl?
posted by Uyiuyi, on April l,2008

Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Narrow Path
Tunde Kelani’s film deals with an extremely touchy subject

Written by Laura Adibe Photography by NGEX website

What is admirable about Nollywood film is the ability by its filmmakers to put together films on moderate budgets with quick turnarounds. Kelani’s film, done on a moderate budget, pieces together a story with a very important message. The Narrow Path deals with such issues as rape, marriage, and innocence.
Tunde Kelani’s film in which he wrote, directed, produced and even partly shot has screened in numerous festivals such as the Women of Color Arts & Film Festival and the New York African Film Festival. The film, an adaptation of Bayo Adebowale’s novel, The Virgin and a sequel to The White Handkerchief follows protagonist, Awero (Sola Asedeko) , who must choose between three suitors who wish to have her hand in marriage. Her wedding night is transformed when she must cope with a shameful secret line that places her in an awkward position between shame and honor.