Teju Cole blogs from Nigeria

January 8, 2006 6:13 PM

Teju Cole is a Nigerian who is returning home after years in the US. His writing is some of the best online prose I have ever read. Good photographs too.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen (12 comments total)

Previously linked as a comment from languagehat.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:13 PM on January 8, 2006

Good stuff.
posted by Paris Hilton at 7:46 PM on January 8, 2006

That guy's been sending me emails for years.
posted by shoepal at 8:00 PM on January 8, 2006

Shoepal = tool.

/waits for fandango_matt to fill up the thread with psudo-yoruba.
posted by delmoi at 8:11 PM on January 8, 2006

Go on shoepal, read something.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:54 PM on January 8, 2006

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Most travel books about Africa open with the author alone, carried along by some vehicle, looking down over some landscape and feeling anxious. Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

He won't get anywhere if he doesn't follow the rules.

The "yahoo boys" ... spleen, thanks -- that's brilliant.
posted by dhartung at 9:04 PM on January 8, 2006

Don't thank me, thank the Hat. If it weren't for him I would never have posted this.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:32 PM on January 8, 2006

This is great. The blogs he links to have some fascinating thoughts, too.
posted by mediareport at 12:36 AM on January 9, 2006

Thanks for posting this, i_am_joe's_spleen. I should warn people that Teju (for reasons best known to himself) plans to take the blog down at the end of the month, so enjoy it while it's there. I guess we can think of it as one of those elaborate Buddhist sand paintings that get erased when they're done. As I said in a comment on his blog, I wish he'd make a book of it. People need to hear this stuff.
posted by languagehat at 6:02 AM on January 9, 2006

very funny, i_am_joe's_spleen.
posted by shoepal at 6:24 AM on January 9, 2006

From mediareport's link:
See, I've never bought the myth that tribes should be renamed nations to satisfy some western acknowledgement that our traditional organizations were complex.

Complex? Try too simple. Too xenophobic (yes, moreso than the West). Too arbitrary and mutable.

I continue to maintain that monolingual ideals of western democracy often based on homogeneous populations [...] cannot be adopted by African countries. They fail.

Wow, talk about begging the question.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:17 PM on January 9, 2006

Just in case anybody notices the new comment here: Teju's taking the blog down tomorrow, and there's lots of great content, so if you haven't visited since this post, please do so now. If you only have time for one post, I recommend dust.
posted by languagehat at 1:35 PM on January 30, 2006