Transatlantic Times

Educated African Ladies Dont Know How To Cook - Public Comment
They Only Speak Grammar - Comment and Get A Chance To Win A Free Week Trip To Africa

Educated ladies can speak only grammar, but cannot cook
I have argued with my mom several times, why the only thing she pressures my sister about is the idea of: Learning how to cook, cook, cook, as if woman-hood was synonymous with cooking. My mom makes this “you must know how to cook this and that” gospel look as if its the most important skill.

What an over reaching comment. I must say that this would likely not stand any serious public scrutiny, however this is the topic we have for today. Please send in your comments and we would publish your selected responses. Let us know if your agree or disagree and state your reasons. If your Comments are selected and published you would be added to our monthly draw, and get a chance to Win a weekend Get away in Lagos, Abuja or Calabar for two Courtesy of Embassy Court Hotels and Hertz Rent a Car, worth over $5,000. Enter as many Times as you can, please give name and country you are corresponding from or you currently reside.
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African Writer's Honored in France
Black Culture and Civilization Highlighted

In the first issue of the journal, Diop defined its goals: to publish Africanist studies on black culture and civilisation, to publish African texts, and to critique works of art or thought concerning the black world.
Although Diop first insisted that Présence Africaine would not be held to any philosophical or political ideology, by 1955 he clearly redefined the journal's objectives. “All articles will be published on the condition that they are in good taste, that they concern Africa, that they neither betray our antiracist and anticolonialist will, nor our solidarity with colonised peoples,” he wrote.

Within the first two years a publishing house was created, and in 1953 the group produced the radical anticolonial film Statues also die. It was banned in France for ten years. There were black writers' and artists' congresses, a cultural association was created, and Diop and his friends were active participants in the organisation of the First Festival of Negro Arts in Senegal, in 1966. The exhibition at the Quai Branly focuses on the major role played by Présence Africaine in the political and cultural history of black Francophone, English-speaking, and Portuguese-speaking intellectuals. To give you an idea of its importance, among the guests at the opening was Wole Soyinka, the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Soyinka has been involved with Présence Africaine for decades. Through the encounters organised by the group, intellectuals, writers and artists can meet and exchange notes on the cultures of the black peoples, he told RFI. That helps them become better known and can influence thinking.
Soyinka describes the impact of Présence Africaine as “diffusive”.
As for the exhibit itself, he says, “There is something both beautiful and sad about it – many of these precursors in the humanities have gone. It’s nostalgic, and a sweet-sour feeling at the same time.”
The exhibition last until the end of January

Oprah Book Circle Winner Author Uwem Akpan To Speak in Michigan
The Jesuit Priest and Winning Author

The Oprah book circle winner, author Uwem Akpan will speak at 4 p.m. Friday at the University of Michigan's Hatcher Graduate Library. Uwem Akpan will talk about his best-selling short story collection at the University of Michigan. Akpan's 2008 book "Say You're One of Them" contains fictional accounts of people seeking normality in the face of often extreme circumstances. He speaks Friday afternoon at the Ann Arbor school's Hatcher Graduate Library.

Akpan studied philosophy and English at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., and theology at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. He earned a master's degree in creative writing at Michigan in 2006. "Say You're One of Them" won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and the PEN/Beyond Margins Award.

Detective Agency to be serialised
The best-selling book The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is to be made into a television series.

Alexander McCall Smith's novel, which follows the adventures of detective Precious Ramotswe, is to be made into 13 episodes.Singer and actress Jill Scott will star in the lead role.A 90-minute pilot directed by Anthony Minghella and co-written with Richard Curtis is to be screened on BBC One this Easter.Minghella is famed for winning an Oscar in 1996 for directing The English Patient, and he was also Oscar-nominated for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley.Curtis has written screenplays for Bridget Jones's Diary and the sequel The Edge of Reason, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. He has also been behind TV series including Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.US television network HBO is partnering the BBC, which is part-funding it, to make the series. Filming will begin this summer.

'Highly entertaining'

"Alexander McCall Smith's wonderful books have been a sensation around the world for years, and we're thrilled to be teaming up with the BBC to adapt these highly entertaining stories for HBO," said HBO's co-president, Richard Plepler."And needless to say, the opportunity to work with the exceptionally gifted Anthony Minghella and Richard Curtis makes this project all the more exciting."Joining Jill Scott on the series will be Dreamgirls star Anika Noni Rose as Precious' highly-efficient, yet rather peculiar, secretary Mma Makutsi.It is not yet confirmed whether British actors Colin Salmon, David Oyelowo and Idris Elba who starred in the pilot, will return for the series.The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency chronicles the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of the only female-owned detective agency in Botswana.Aided by Mma Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe investigates cases, helps people solve problems in their lives, and begins a special friendship with the owner of a local garage.McCall Smith has had global success with the nine novels he has written about Mma Ramotswe.