15th August, 2013
This is an account of how the International Conference on D.O. Fagunwa went interactive online, drawing the virtual participation of hundreds of social media users. At the opening ceremony, I did what your average twitter user might do, I tweeted. “Good morning from Akure, where the #FagunwaConference is about to start. Thinkers, performers and writers are congregated here, many.”
I created a hashtag (#FagunwaConference) to be tagged on to all tweets posted on the event. For non-twitter users, an explanation: a hashtag allows tweets to be grouped under a common topic, allowing people to start a conversation. And, perhaps underscoring the wide-ranging interest in Fagunwa and literature in indigenous languages, the very first response came from the twitter handle, @chykere, run by a Nigerian-Igbo based in the UK.
Diverse accounts tweeted the #FagunwaConference hashtag, calling on their followers to pay attention to live-tweets from Akure. Among these were: @ZODML (a Lagos-based library), @jeremyweate, (Jeremy Weate) @sarabamag (a literary journal), @carmenmccain (Hausa literature scholar, Carmen McCain) and @brittlepaper (African literature journal run by Ainehi Edoro, a doctoral candidate at Duke University, U.S).
I kept tweets flying onto twitter every few minutes, but it seemed they could not come fast enough for the growing audience. Tweets got four retweets on average, to potentially thousands of followers of other twitter accounts. Edoro asked about images from the event, some wanted video/audio clips, others wanted multiple tweeters, to give a range of perspectives on the conference.
Tweeting constantly at a conference the proceedings of which one was deeply interested in, threw up its own challenges. Tweeting cannot easily be done in conjunction with active note-taking. The demands for photographs could not be met at first, since one had to sit still through most of the tweeting. The act of tweeting itself – typing 140 characters on the Blackberry and then trying to send them onto twitter, connectivity allowing – involves regular, albeit momentary, mental disengagements from the proceedings. This gives rise to inevitable gaps in one’s knowledge of the event. Still, one persevered since what you do know, you know well, from having had to process it at speed, for twitter. Then there was the case of my dying phone battery, which had many on tweeters posting suggestions on how to get round the problem, to keep the information flowing.
President of PEN Nigeria, Tade Ipadeola (@tadepen) tweeted to say he was on the way to the conference; respondents cheered him on. Ipadeola, journalist Aderinsola Ajao (@theveryderin) and filmmaker Tunde Kelani (@tkelani), tweeted from time to time to complement my live-tweeting.
Many tweeted to thank me for the “service”, and encouraged me to carry on. “Well done, great reportage. People should be encouraged to visit Oke-Igbo where [Fagunwa] got his inspiration,” tweeted @henrylagos. Damola Awoyokun (@osoronga) wanted me to ask keynote speaker Wole Soyinka if the world could expect further Fagunwa translations from him. Awoyokun revealed that he is also working on translations of Hubert Ogunde’s songs.
On arrival, Ipadeola tweeted his first impressions: “Organisers clearly underestimated turnout at the #FagunwaConference. The venue wears the garb of a burgeoning festival.” The list of heavyweight professors elicited a response from US-based writer, Teju Cole: “Has there ever been a greater gathering of Yoruba literary expertise? A truly awe-inspiring roll call. Wish I were there.”
He was not alone in the expressions of yearning by those who could only access the proceedings via twitter. Prof Jacob K. Olupona who delivered a paper during the conference, is a relative of Fagunwa’s widow. After Mrs. Fagunwa’s moving account of her husband’s death on Day Two, Busayo Olupona (@busayonyc, presumably the professor’s daughter) tweeted to say: “Thanks for tweeting #FagunwaConference… My great aunt looks amazing. Wish I could have been there to hear her comments.”
Mrs. Fagunwa’s contribution generated many twitter responses, underscoring the enduring interest in the author and the myths surrounding him, even though he has been dead 50 years. Someone posted the link to a Wikipedia entry which claimed that the author died in a car crash. “Error!” posted another (Fagunwa died by drowning, as his widow reiterated, and as was duly tweeted and retweeted).
Mirroring discussions on the conference, tweets on social media generated myriad conversations on many issues, including: Fagunwa and his works, indigenous language literature and teaching, translation, gender and sexuality. Broadcaster Funmi Iyanda (@funmilola) tweeted to express her sadness that Fagunwa’s works (as well as those by Achebe and Soyinka) are not on the WAEC syllabus. Some of us doubted the veracity of this claim, but Iyanda later tweeted a URL to prove that she was indeed correct.
Social media users not only engaged with the issues being discussed in Akure, they sought to get their views across to the conference, to create a wider conversation involving lovers of Fagunwa novels across the globe. About 25 per cent of my tweets were in Yoruba, underscoring the bilingual nature of a conference on an author who wrote in the Yoruba language. The Yoruba tweets were no less popular, and were eagerly retweeted or ‘favourited’ – perhaps to delight in the beauty of the line tweeted, or even as language lessons. Many #FagunwaConference tweets served as a glossary of some of the Yoruba terms used by speakers.
Kelani started an illuminating quiz when he asked his followers to name “the five golden novels of Fagunwa.” Many responded, often with amusing results. Some were correct, some mixed up two titles in one, others corrected them. Little by little, the titles ‘Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole’, ‘Igbo Olodumare’, ‘Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo Elegbeje’, ‘Ireke Onibudo’ and ‘Adiitu Olodumare’ were being bandied about on social media. Some who had never heard of the man and his books, now wanted to find out more. Many wanted to know: where could they get the books? What of the papers delivered at the conference? Some twitter users helpfully posted the website for the Fagunwa Study Group, organisers of the conference.
When I tweeted Karin Barber’s glowing comments on ‘Adiitu Olodumare’ in her paper, many on twitter responded by naming their own favourites. After helping to correct someone who conflated two Fagunwa books into one title, Dele Olojede (@deleolojede) did a series of tweets on his own reading of the novels. “Love of literature began with Fagunwa’s fantastically imagined world of gomids and one-eyed tree dwellers. / Favourite remains ‘Irinkerindo’, the odyssey of my childhood. / Read Soyinka’s translation of ‘Ogboju Ode’ to my daughters when younger. Thought Harry Porter couldn’t survive Fagunwa’s forest.”
Others, like Dotun Olowoporoku (@dotunolowo) took Kelani’s question further by naming his favourite characters: “Akara-Ogun, Olohun-Iyo, Kako, Efo Iye, Imodoye and Elegbede Ode.” Many joined him in the exercise, Kako inspiring some lively comments on his character as envisioned by Fagunwa. Twitter users suddenly wanted to show off their Fagunwa collection – @IAmAyoMiDotun posted an image of four of the novels; older, now rare editions he got from his mother (who introduced him to Fagunwa). He got eight retweets; the image adopted into fresh tweets by others. Another image of three rare editions of Fagunwa followed in a tweet by @SeunIge, who got them from his aunt’s library. Such was the excitement, as Fagunwa transversed social media.
Translation was a major topic for twitter users, even as the issue preoccupied many at the Fagunwa conference. One actor from Femi Osofisan’s adaptations for the stage, chipped in his two cents on twitter. Google Translate does not currently include Yoruba – @jeremyweate called this “a cultural crime of omission” – @baroka assured that there are people working behind the scenes to remedy the situation. The Fagunwa twitter exercise ran its own commentary on the complexity of translation, as @baroka served as translator for my tweets done in Yoruba. Our exchanges back and forth on finding the closest possible meaning, garnered many retweets, ‘favourites’ and ‘mentions’ by other twitter users.
Oyeronke Oyewumi’s paper involved gendered readings of Yoruba words from the novels; many conference delegates and the twitter audience were united in choosing to translate Fagunwa differently. Akara-Ogun’s “Ogbologbo aje ni iya mi” (My mother is an awesome witch) mostly got female twitter users screeching in delight, wanting to get copies of ‘Ogboju Ode’. Not quite what Oyewumi intended. Gender dovetailed into the issue of homosexuality. Twitter users, including known gay activists, first showed interest in what would be revealed. However, when Adeleke Adeeko’s decidedly challenging reading of a scene in ‘Ogboju Ode’ was finally tweeted, it was met by silence. The only retweet at this point, by @eggheader, related to Dan Izevbaye’s refutation of Adeeko’s position. Does this mean that a gay critique of a beloved Fagunwa novel is a reading too far? One hopes more readers will seek out ‘Ogboju Ode’ and decide for themselves.
Speaking of @eggheader, he has about 27,000 followers to whom he retweeted the Fagunwa conference over and over. The responses were truly international. South African female writers tweeted their delight at being able to follow the #FagunwaConference, Frank Wynne (@Terribleman) noted the concern that Fagunwas’s publishers relegated his name on the translated editions in favour of the translator, Soyinka. “The way that The Kraus Project is being published as though (Jonathan) Franzen is author not translator,” Wynne said. Odia Ofeimun’s comment about the “self-forgetting of the Yoruba”, invited a retweet from Kenyan Caine Prize winner, Binyavanga Wainaina.
There were over 400 twitter ‘mentions’ of my account (@molarawood) by other users while I tweeted exclusively about the conference. Over 80 users followed my account in three days. Such was the level of interest. By the end of Day Two, there were requests for a ‘Storify’ – to make the unique tweets of the conference available in narrative sequence through one internet link. Akin Akintayo (@forakin) offered to undertake the Storify task for me. The volume was such that the Storify had to be broken into two parts comprising 600 unique tweets running into a total of 24 pages.
What this exercise suggests, is that there is a thirst for the works of D.O. Fagunwa. If they can cut across the borderless geographies of the internet via social media, they can catch on in real life to be discovered by new readers. As Prof. Olaoye Abioye said at the #FagunwaConference, “The fire must be kept aglow.”
Fagunwa Conference Storify Part I: http://storify.com/forakin/d-o-fagunwa-fifty-years-on.
Fagunwa Conference Story Part II: http://storify.com/forakin/d-o-fagunwa-fifty-years-on-part-ii
— By Molara Wood