Two former romance writers for romance magazines in Nigeria have gone ahead of their peers to become world class writers, and they are Toni Kan and Helon Habila. And Habila looks like our next Ben Okri as his new novel Measuring Time proves that he is going to continue to excel even as he has moved from the University of East Anglia in Norwish to the George Mason University in Washington, D.C, to join the Creative Writing faculty.

I have not seen him since 2002. And the last time I discussed him was in the office of Karen King-Aribisala at the University of Lagos when she was reviewing his first novel Waiting for an Angel. Karen rated Helon Habila's prose above Chinua Achebe's and she couldn't be wrong. Because, she is not only one of the best prize winning writers from the developing world, she is also an accomplished literary scholar. And the last time we sat down to discuss modern literature, we were so enraptured in our discussion that she did not welcome other visitors and ignored all distractions until we were done.

I am very proud of Helon Habila.

Here is a review of his latest novel from the Guardian Unlimited.

The power of two

Helon Habila's investigation of Nigerian politics and community, Measuring Time, impresses Giles Foden

Saturday February 10, 2007
The Guardian

Measuring Time
by Helon Habila
383pp, Hamish Hamilton, £16.99

Twins, quadratures and syzygies have long been part of Nigerian literature and myth, usually as a challenge to views of society based on the primacy of the individual. Given the way the country has gone, Nigeria now being a byword for scheming selfishness and corruption, it seems no accident that twins should play such a big role in the late renaissance of the Nigerian novel, as illuminated by Helon Habila, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Helen Oyeyemi.

That renaissance is a phenomenon for which any lover of African literature must be grateful, for not since the early 1970s has much emerged from the continent that has been able to make a global impact. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them is the paralysing connection between a breakdown of societal mechanisms (including publishing) and the wider degradation of what might be described as "citizenship memory" - something by no means limited to Africa.
Oyeyemi's beguiling novel The Icarus Girl dealt with relationships between twins and doubles as a way into cultural difference. Twins also feature in Adichie's exceptional Half of a Yellow Sun, as do themes of religion, tribal loyalty and education in exactly the type of civic renovation with which the younger generation of Nigerian novelists have tasked themselves. It is a hard ideal but a crucial one, for civil society can only be re-established in Africa through a proper understanding of history.

Habila, Caine prizewinner and author of the acclaimed Waiting for an Angel, has also written a novel in which twins and history are central. It is a very subtle piece of work in which the story of a family and community in northern Nigeria in the 1980s and early 90s is woven into a wider sociopolitical narrative, touching on education, responsibility, the colonial inheritance and the mythic substratum of folklore.

Habila's twins, Mamo and LaMamo, have nearly the same name, but are very different characters. Mamo is an awkward invalid (he has sickle-cell anaemia), whereas LaMamo is strong and bold. Having lost their mother in childbirth, they are unified only in hatred of their father, Lemang, a selfish lothario who pays them scant attention. By way of revenge they put scorpions in the shoes of this failed parent, who stands allegorically for years of failed national leaders.

After a strange scene in which the twins murder a witch's dog, rubbing rheum from its eyes into their own to enable them to see ghosts, they decide to run away and join the army - only for Mamo, suffering an anaemic crisis, to turn tail. He will not see his brother for 20-odd years, though letters tell of time spent fighting in various mercenary armies in Chad, Mali and Liberia.

Mamo becomes a local historian and schoolteacher, all the while struggling with his father and his illness. Lemang is transformed into a wealthy businessman and politician. His star rises high until his plan to bring water to the dusty land by a process called "reverse osmosis" is stolen by a rival. Mamo's school becomes an electoral pawn. Done as high farce, these scenes of political infighting are very amusing, but the serious burden - nothing less than the future of a country - is always booming away in the background.

Chosen by the waziri (vizier) of the local mai, or emir, to write a history of the mai's rule and family, Mamo's own fortunes rise as his father's decline. He has a passionate love affair with a woman called Zara, who, in another parallel, also wants to be a writer, and settles into a new life as the mai's secretary. But things are not what they seem, and Mamo realises he must foil the wily waziri's schemes.

Readers will remember the scheming Sam Adekunle in William Boyd's A Good Man in Africa, drawn from the wonderful waziri in Joyce Cary's 1939 novel Mister Johnson, which Boyd adapted for the screen. What is exciting about Habila is that he combines these western literary archetypes with a much older, oracular style of African tale-telling in which the novel becomes part of the oral narrative tapestry of a particular community. The book also integrates many themes of the modern African novel, from the journey undertaken by LaMamo as a version of the traditional initiatory excursion, to the equivalent quest of the hero, Mamo, for true wisdom.

Measuring Time is both a historical novel that "measures time" in the sense of comparing historical periods, and a psychological study of a man who must "measure up" to his brother and the critical demands of a society in crisis. Most importantly of all, however, it is a triumphant celebration of relativism. By the end, in spite of abounding tragedies, Mamo has discovered that the secret of survival lies not in individualism but in exactly the sort of oscillatory in-between-ness that his twinship exemplifies.
[url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2009449,00.html]The Guardian[/url]

Have you read Karen King Arbisala, Orikinla? One lady that I know of, via online (though we met physically at a Nigerian party) paid glowing reviews to her work. I havent read any of her novels, and I am curious to read her work. None of her novels are available in my local library, neither can I access them at any library that shares a relationship with my library. Nigerian female writers literary works, (the ones that I have read) are ok in my opinion, though, I would pick certain Senegalese female writers.

Ndipe,
I have read her short stories.
I was falling in love with her so I stopped seeing her, because she is married and the wife of a pastor.
We met at the British Council and later in her office at the University of Lagos.

You write her direct through the official University of Lagos address.
She is still there.
She is kind enough to oblige to send you complimentary copies of her fiction.
If she asks for payment, tell her that I will pay for them.

hey can i have a link 2 se this great female author?
orikinla longest time

Ibkn,
Karen King-Aribisala is at UNILAG.
She is from Guyana, but happily married to a Nigerian pastor.

i just finished reading the book waiting for an angel and it was great. how do i get a copy of this book.