Narrative Landscape Press has announced the release of its edition of the poetry anthology, Wreaths for a Wayfarer, published in honour of Professor Pius Adesanmi.
Before his death in the Ethiopian Airline flight 302 on March 10, 2019, Adesanmi was a writer, literary critic, and professor at Carleton University, Canada. Wreaths for a Wayfarer features 127 poets from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. The anthology comprises five parts, namely: Wayfarer, Requiems, Homecoming, Selection of Adesanmi’s poems, and Postlude.
Wreaths for a Wayfarer has been hailed as being a “historic,” “magisterial,” “powerful,” “remarkable contribution,” “rare accomplishment,” and “poetic affirmation” by leading African scholars and public figures such as Harry Garuba, Toyin Falola, Obioma Nnaemeka, Oby Ezekwesili, Olu Obafemi, and Odia Ofeimun.
The book, editied by Nduka Otiono and Uchechukwu Umezurike, will soon be available for online purchase on Narrative Landscape Press’ Konga page at N5,000 only: https://www.konga.com/merchant/narrative-landscape and at major bookstores in Nigeria. For bulk purchases, please contact us at: orders@narrativelandscape.com. For all other enquiries, send an email to us at: contact@narrativelandscape.com. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Wreaths for a Wayfarer will be donated toward an education fund for the two daughters of Pius Adesanmi.
Otiono is Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Canada, while Umezurike is a Ph.D. Candidate and Vanier Scholar in the English and Film Studies department of the University of Alberta, Canada.
Narrative Landscape Press is a Lagos-based independent publishing company founded by Anwuli Ojogwu and Eghosa Imasuen in 2016. Their authors include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Oyinkan Braithwaite and Marlon James.
Praise for Wreaths for a Wayfarer
This historic collection of poems by esteemed and budding writers from across the African continent and beyond seeks to confront the ephemerality of life with the permanence of art; it is a testament to the power of poetry to turn grief into art. As WH Auden would have said, these poems start the healing fountains in the deserts of the mourning heart. – Harry Garuba, Professor and poet, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Pius Adesanmi was restless, waging intellectual war against the kind of ignorance that makes oppressed citizens worship their oppressors. Wreaths for a Wayfarer is both a poetic tribute, and a remarkable contribution, to that all-important war through beautiful poetry. It is the fight for the enlightenment of all minds that are trapped in caves so they can hear and join the selfless battle for freedom from fiefdoms. – Obiageli Ezekwesili, former Vice President of World Bank (Africa Region).
Fatality has produced its own face of fate in this magisterial anthology, yielding enormous faith in our friend, Pius, as words attack the great loss, lament the unexpected casualty, and expose the revelations of history. Verses speak to our expectations—the daydreaming, the anticipations, even the blessings of a temporary moment. . . A new world is imminent, a new world of rebirth and possibilities, a new world! – Toyin Falola, The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin.
Richly evocative and engaging, this powerful collection of poems from the heart is a magnificent tribute that emblazons the essence of Pius Adesanmi – joy, love, laughter, wit, brilliance, erudition, nomadism, commitment – whose life was a long poem of peerless beauty; a melodious song of the breeze and birds of the savannah; an elegant dance to the rhythms of Africa; a resplendent sun that refuses to set. – Obioma Nnaemeka, Chancellor’s Professor, Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA, and President, Association of African Women Scholars (AAWS).
Wreaths for a Wayfarer is written in divinely eloquent verses – to drums, gongs, flutes and songs – by citizens of the world of words, in whose hearts the “wayfarer” lives. It is an assemblage of kindred tongues creating and recreating a new future from an unrelieved past and a censured present. . .This collection . . . is a rare accomplishment. I doubt if this can be surpassed. – Olu Obafemi, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL), and recipient of the Nigeria National Order of Merit (NNOM).
The wayfarers and exiles, so admirably represented by Pius Adesanmi and others in this anthology, prove a zealous identification with the native land, from far and near. They left but never forgot. . .This, indeed, is the gravamen of this anthology: that the death of one exemplar. . . has yielded a reason to intensify a resistant ethic to the devastation and dilapidation that have become sources of trauma and regrets across country and continent. – Odia Ofeimun, Poet and former President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).