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Recently, the
Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) published the latest edition of
its journal titled ANA Review’. The journal commemorates ANA’s 29th
International Convention which held in October this year. The
publication is divided into three parts, which are sectionalised into
poetry, stories and essay sections. To say the journal is poor and a
ruffling of the dignity a national literary body like ANA is supposed to
possess may be an understatement. It brought home the glaring paucity
of good writers and editors. Ranging from elementary grammatical
blunders to desiccated ideas that shouldn’t even make a worthy
publication, not to talk of the pervasive typographical errors, the ANA
journal is simply an intellectual failure.

The poetry section
has 13 poems, most of which are not worthy of public consumption. A
poem like Chukwunonso Ezeiyoke’s ‘Better a Nightmare,’ which is full of
grammatical inconsistencies poorly, treats its seemingly elegiac subject
of a lament at the death of a loved one. The poem lacks the suitable
mood and tones that are worthy of the sorrowful subject. Same goes with
Richard Ugbede Ali’s ‘Wedding Feast at Qana’. Tade Ipadeola’s ‘The
Damned Echo Tree’ reeks of what a writer termed “a vaporous haze of a
mirage”. The writer should attend lessons in grammar to distinguish
particularly between “it’s” and “its,” and such other elementary
constructions.

Ironically too,
some of the poems supposedly dedicated to literary icons like the late
T. M. Aluko were deformed pieces that would have obviously made the late
writer tweak his nose at the bumbling pieces that were written in his
honour. Poetry is supposed to possess the power of feelings and a force
on words that speaks to the humanity of the audience.

If the poetry was
poor, the short story section of the journal is simply abysmal. The two
stories that made the publication, ‘The Taxi Fare’ and ‘Balls and Nets’,
written by Alpha Emeka and Olubunmi Julius-Adeoye respectively, lack
depth and such poetic cadence that good short stories often exude. ‘The
Taxi Fare,’ chronicles a humorous incident in a taxi cab and the
eventual violent turn-out. The story would have perhaps been close to
average if the writer spent ample time on the plausibility of events. In
trying to thematise on the absurdities of human character, he creates
improbable, unrealistic characters. The driver is too sophisticated for
his profession to the point of being somewhat intellectually more
advanced than his passengers, including a civil servant. The supersonic
kaleidoscopic ending of the story conclusively renders it childish. For
‘Balls and Nets,’ one can only say the writer struggled to piece a
feminist tract but failed woefully. The popular themes of sexual
harassment at the work front are not treated with depth.

The bulk of the
journal is filled with six essays, most of which were papers presented
during the October 2010 ANA International Convention. Many of the
essays, though poorly written, are informative and incisive. Of
particular mention is the long piece by Nwokedi nwa Nwokedi titled
‘Children’s Literature and the Challenges of National [the poor editing
ensured the title was incomplete though I suspect the missing word
should be “Integration”].’The paper moralises on the need to exploit the
valuable tools of literature in the various stages of children’s
education.

The richest of the
papers should be Austin Amanze Akpuda’s ‘A Dream Beyond Pyramids:
Ferment, Harvest, Bazzar and Carnival in Nigerian Literature of the
Post-Soyinka Nobel Prize Era’. Akpuda documents the various stages of
Nigerian literature and the ground-breaking leaps made by the younger
generations of Nigerian writers. The writer argues that literary laurels
have been dubiously awarded to unmerited writings of some popular
writers, to the detriment of more valuable works by younger ones. This
trend, he argues, has been used to deny younger generations of Nigerian
writers of deserved recognitions. Some of the other essays lack focus
and literary merit. Damola Awoyokun’s ‘The Yahoo Generation and the
Triple Tropes of Sleaze’ lacks the sleaze of a good essay. Ideas are
discordantly presented in some carelessly written English. Punctuation
and spelling errors riddle most of the essays and almost snuffed
scholarship out of the journal.

The best way to treat journals like this would have been to ignore
reviewing them. Paradoxically, this review may even popularise the
journal and make some persons wish to have a first-hand grasp of the
content. This, I advise nonetheless. It is quite saddening that ANA
could choose to produce something as unworthy as this journal. The
publication is highly unrepresentative of the ANA Achebe and Soyinka
graciously established to give identity to Nigerian writers. The ANA of
this era has brought literature to a near dead-end. No wonder the
Association lacks a firm backbone to put in hefty and weighty voice to
the present literary discourse in Nigeria. The editorial team that
worked on this journal needs to be sacked. No apologies!