Tebogo and the pantophagist launched

"Letter from South Africa" is Omoseye Bolaji's regular weekly column published in the Nigerian newspaper, True National News. The column comes out every Monday. True National News is circulated all over Nigeria on a weekly basis.


January 18 2010 edition

Letter from South Africa (Column)

With Omoseye Bolaji

TEBOGO AND THE PANTOPHAGIST Launched


My new book, Tebogo and the pantophagist (2010) was formally launched in Bloemfontein, South Africa the other week. It was the seventh Tebogo Mokoena Mystery book. For writers and literary aficionados, such an occasion is always one to relish.

Hence the launch - which was held at the Batho Hall in Mangaung, attracted quite a number of those who relish and love the world and genre of writing. It was nice seeing some old faces again as they filed in, joked, confabulated and exchanged opinions and ideas.

There were fine poets like Tiisetso M Thiba and Richard Seape (Skietreker); the latter is a well known poet who garnered some controversy when he published his first book in Afrikaans (titled Apartheid ek gaan jou boks) The impressive Pule Lechesa, essayist, critic and poet was also in attendance. Thabo Mafike, publisher, prolific author and also a motivational speaker, was present too. So was Julia Mooi, a female writer who incidentally published a study on some of my works last year.

My mind went back to book launches in Nigeria and how it has got to the stage where largely, rich philanthropist aka chief launchers etc have to chip in to make books viable. At least four of my books in Nigeria have been launched in such a way - the last ones at the University of Ibadan Conference Centre in late 2008.

If only we could recreate the old days when books were cheap and everybody could buy them easily; the days when virtually everybody had impressive personal libraries at their homes throughout west Africa- the days when the art of reading and exchanging books reached an apogee!

The reviews and comments on my new book took some time at the launch; they were varied and (to me) sometimes controversial - I did not agree with some of the comments (when did writers ever agree with critics!!!) Anyway I include two or three minuscule excerpts here:

From Daniel Pela who said: "The beauty of the Tebogo Mystery series is that it largely encourages many of we black people at grassroots level to read and enjoy mystery books with local touches, the way our people talk, go to the pubs and shebeens, interact, the occasional skeletons in closets etc. It is heart warming to have our own detective like Tebogo operating like more heralded white sleuths like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or Ellery Queen”.

Charles Matorera observed: "In this latest adventure, common sense largely prevails again. Phantasy, irritating snobbery and over-contrived situations are largely kept in abeyance. The main criticism is that it is highly unlikely that a scientist can be so much a food lover (pantophagist); in reality such a person would most likely live in another world as it were, and skip things like lunches"

Critic Peter Moroe considered Debbie’s character in the book; concluding: "Her attitude here reflects how many black women who grew up in the townships would feel in a situation like this, with the condescending approach to animals. But note that both Tebogo, and Shasha (who is besotted with Debbie) condemn her attitude; this type of approach is typical of Bolaji’s fiction which tends to be conciliatory and broad-minded.'

It rather excites me that the Tebogo Mystery series is almost ten years into since inception! The first one I wrote and published was Tebogo Investigates (2000); this has now been followed by Tebogo's spot of bother (2001) Tebogo fails (2003), Ask Tebogo (2004) Tebogo and the Haka (2008), Tebogo and the epithalamion (2009); and now Tebogo and the pantophagist (2010)

Some of the members of the media at the launch asked me a few questions after the formal launch of the new book. One of them was: "Mr Bolaji, it appears that the early books in the Tebogo series had simple titles but rather complicated plots. But the last three have difficult titles but simple plots! I mean how many people in the African black world will know about the haka; what is the epithalamion; what is the pantophagist?”

I laughed but another reporter and reader came to my rescue somewhat by stating that it was not exactly true to say all my recent plots have been simple; he pointed out that he found the plot of Tebogo and the haka quite as complicated or even more than the early ones; and it was good to learn a few things from the recent books.

I tried to answer the question as simply as I could but to be honest I am not a fan of writers going out of their way to behave like celebrities. I have always believed that whatever we write must do more or less all the speaking for us (res ipsa loquitor?); and who knows all the arcane promptings and inspiration of writers anyway?