Abubakar Adam Ibrahim embodies what it means to be a successful writer. The author of two novels and two short story collections, he is the recipient of multiple prizes including the 2016 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, and has enjoyed several literary fellowships and residencies around the world.
Not one to enjoy the rewards of success alone, he has created the Flame Tree Foundation for Creativity and Media Literacy as a way of paying it forward. One of the foundation’s initiatives is the Flame Tree Writers’ Project, a creative writing workshop designed to inspire and support aspiring Northern Nigerian writers between the ages of 18 and 35. The inaugural workshop took place in Abuja in July 2024, and with funding secured from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, selected participants received tutoring from Ibrahim, fellow NLNG Prize laureate Chika Unigwe, playwright and academic Dr. Rasheedah Liman, film maker Ishaya Bako, and literary agent, Emma Shercliff.
That project has birthed Someone Should Hold Farida, an anthology of 18 short stories from the workshop’s alumni, a group of emerging literary talent committed to illustrating the diversity of the Northern Nigerian experience through their work.
Mental ill health is a major theme in this collection; its sufferers are caught between psychiatric intervention and exorcists who believe them to be possessed by jinn. Another preoccupation is secrecy – its allure, and its destructiveness. History is interrogated in an account of the Nigerian Civil War and in the autopsy of a community’s turn from animist practices, and myth and magic also offer inspiration. Above all, what unites the stories is a cast of wilful protagonists who refuse to be defined by their circumstances and exercise agency to achieve fulfilment in their respective lives. These narratives, Nigerian with a distinctly Northern flair, are enlivened and authenticated by the inclusion of documentary photography by noted visual storyteller Sani Maikatanga.
While a few of the stories either rely too heavily on melodrama for momentum, or race towards tidy, but highly improbable resolutions, the inherent talent of their authors cannot be denied and these missteps can be chalked up to the eagerness of inexperience, after all, this is the first literary outing for many of them.
The standout pieces in the collection include Barka Da Sallah by Mariam Abdullahi; Candlelights at the Roundabout by Adamu Ahmadu; the eponymous Someone Should Hold Farida by Shedrack Opeyemi Akanbi; Ink Trails by Yasmin Bawa; The Last Water Lord of Bare by Alewa Jonathan David; Kala by Edwin Mamman; Yours, Barmani by Saeed Muhammad Lawan, and The Interview by Nana Sule.
The most well-known of these burgeoning authors may be Sule, who has since made her solo debut with Not So Terrible People, a collection of short fiction that has earned her admiration from the likes of Helon Habila who heralds her as “an exciting new voice in Nigerian literature.” Sule’s offshoot success is an attestation to how the right kind of support can enable promising literary talent to bloom and flourish.
The democratic spirit behind the Flame Tree Writers’ Project is also extended to readers, as Abubakar Adam Ibrahim has ensured that the anthology is free and available to read and download online. Of particular concern to him, as stated in the book’s foreword, is his desire to see the work readily engaged with by students of literature and creative writing across Nigerian universities. In a similar vein, the companion hardcover edition, which is bound to be a collector’s item someday, can be read at select literary spaces nationwide including Adam’s Pages, Café de Vie, and Spine & Label in Abuja, Ouida Books in Lagos, and The Third Space in Kano.
***Akumbu Uche is a writer and storyteller from Nigeria. Her works have been published by thelagosreview.ng, Aké Review, Brittle Paper, Canthius, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere.
