Karen King-Aribisala

Karen Ann King+Aribisala (born Guyana) is a Nigerian novelist, and short story writer. She is a Professor of English at the University of Lagos. Quotes But you try to listen to the other person’s point of view as “The Black Lady The” does. Simply by believing in God and leaving it to God to change things. Which is again not to say that you don’t do anything on your own part. You hear another person’s point of view. You may agree with it or not but you are all achieving to some vision. you cannot negotiate truth: truth is truth because it is truth. You can’t talk around it you know. Whether one sees it as a perversity or not I believe it is a perversity. When you are criticising or analysing something it is different to when you are writing it and sometimes you can see more than the person who is sitting writing it ‘cos that’s the job of the critic. Storytelling is my way of organising and structuring my thoughts, emotions and environment; and transforming these elements into a ‘workable reality’. It affords me the means of asking questions of myself and of others; of communicating with myself and others. On completion of a particular story, I am empowered to evaluate various issues from different perspectives and handle them more effectively. Storytelling is life-giving; it transforms dead reality into a vibrant living entity. Sharing the source of her love of storytelling The culture of female silence is being broken here, too, in Nigeria. We are being heard. We are being listened to. Action is being taken on many levels to jettison prejudice and injustice towards women. The culture of women’s silence in the face of oppression is coming to an end. We can only go forward as a nation; as a human race when male and female work together to realise a harmonious ideal. This sensitisation can be effected through dialogue; by accountability; by jettisoning fear of the other whoever that other might be; both on individual and group levels. On gender equality. I have had many satisfying experiences in my academic career. I teach Creative Writing as one of my allocated courses. I gave the class a story to write, entitled: The Day the Fork Danced. To my chagrin, most if not all of the stories submitted revealed a lack of imagination. The students in the main, wrote stories about restaurants, called “The Day the Fork Danced.” It was as if they doggedly refused to imagine a world, a scenario where a fork could dance. I told them about my misgivings and they submitted another set of stories; stories wherein forks quarreled with spoons; where knives were hostile and wanted to do all the carving and so on. In other words, they began to use their imaginations; they began to see life from different perspectives; they started to entertain notions of the seemingly impossible. This was most satisfying and humbling, too. I was involved in not just teaching the rudiments of creative writing but also encouraging them to think outside of the box; to dare to imagine – as others had done and succeeded – walking on the moon, preferably with a fork dancing! Sharing one of her most satisfying experiences in her decades-long academic career. The best way to promote a reading culture is to make it a holistic enterprise in its relation to other disciplines; by presentations – wherever possible – of people and offices, which have something to do with the text. The reading culture can also be promoted by using other media such as films to see the text in another light or from a different perspective. Reading per se becomes exciting; essential to nation-building, individual-building and indeed world-building. It is essentially a certain sensitising of the other whether that other is an eagle or a fork or a person or a foreigner or one’s other self… the list, the joy, the communication with that other, is as nourishing of the soul and the spirit as it is endless. On how to promote a reading culture. OUR Wife and Other Stories is my first published collection of short stories. The collection was my way of connecting with the Nigerian society, a way of understanding the various cultures, which I confronted, particularly, the Yoruba culture. Sharing the essence of her work. External links Category: living people Category:Women authors from Nigeria