What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
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Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
“I was cursed by a mad woman,” said this caller.
It all began with a message I found in my Facebook messenger box.
“Prof, what is your WhatsApp number,” the Facebook message reads. “My number is xxx. I want to discuss something important with you and I don’t want to write it on Facebook.”
My father told me the story of three thieves. He was a fiction writer, so I never knew if it was something he made up, or read up.
But let me tell you the tale if you got one minute:
Three thieves received info that a miner kept a large bundle of gold in his house. They decided they should go and relieve the guy of his treasure. “After all,” argued one thief, “he dug up this stone from the ground that God gave all of us.”
YORUBA ALPHABETS: Vowels and Consonants
The Yoruba language is unique in one aspect: it doesn’t have consonantal clusters.
This means that in Yoruba language, you don’t have two consonants together: every consonants MUST be followed by a vowel.
Almost all other languages in the world have consonantal clusters.
He was unable to eat or sleep, as anxiety and depression began to unravel his characteristic calm disposition. Only a couple of months prior to the abduction, the wife of the Commissioner of Works was kidnapped and an undisclosed but generous ransom was paid for her release. Kidnapping had become the new strategy adopted by members of the underworld, who targeted the rich and famous in their bid to get rich quick. Business tycoons, expatriate oil executives, journalists, politicians, and even religious leaders and their families were constant targets. Abduction had become a multi million naira enterprise in Nigeria, and the police seemed unable to find any solution to the problem. No kidnapper had been arrested, and huge sums of ransom money had been paid. Many people complained that there was evidence of collusion between the security forces and the criminals.
Oladejo Okediji–who happens to be my father, is the oldest living writer in the Yoruba language.
He is 89 this year.
He is pictured here with the cover of his first novel, Àjà Ló Lẹrù, published in 1969.
Baba is still pretty prolific. His latest book, Ohùn Ẹnu Àgbà, came out this year. It is a collection of his poems.
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: The Trial of the Snail and the Tortoise
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Date: 2018
THE CHILD BREAKS THE SHELL OF A SNAIL, NOT THAT OF A TORTOISE.