Books, Featured
By Christabel Ejenike
MARGARET Olele, Chief Executive Officer/Executive Secretary of the American Business Council, made a public presentation of her book, Corals of Youth, on Tuesday, September, 17, 2024, on the first day of the Africa Creative Market at Landmark Centre Lagos.
The book, Corals of Youth, is an autobiography of the early life of Margaret Olele and the middle class family she grew up in. It was set in Abule, Yaba in Lagos.
Listening to Joke Sylvia read an extract from the book; it gave off a nostalgic ambiance not just for the author and the characters featured in the book, but also for the audience as they were able to relate her experiences to themselves.
The coordinator of the programme, Ifeoma Idigbe, describes the book as an autobiography of Margret Olele and also a biography of her family, noting that the book conveys a lot of strong female characters (Margaret, her mother and her sisters). According to her, the book couldn’t have come at a better time as it portrays the changing dynamic of Nigeria and the concept of family between then and the present day, Nigeria.
Dr. Ikechukwu Obiaya, Dean, School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, PAU, in his literature review of the book, stated that people have different reasons for writing autobiography, but in Margaret Olele’s case, the book Corals of Youth, was written in celebration of a place Abule Oja, Yaba, and the characters around this place in the 1980s and early 1990s irrespective of their origin.
“Corals of Youth” is a book of 10 chapters, covering the first 15 years or more of the author’s life. The chapters are not of equal length, the shortest is chapter seven while the longest is chapter 10, the last one; which gave the impression that the author realised that there was still so much to say and tried to cram as much as possible into the last chapter, perhaps it’s an indication that there will be a part two.” he said.
While, according to the author the events in that chapter were so tightly connected that they all had to go to that chapter.
According to Obiaya, the author used a familiar writing style as the book gives the reader the impression that the author is face to face with you, just gisting. To explain this, he went further to say that if you know the author, you could almost hear her giving in at certain points of the book when she’s narrating her experiences.
He said that it was marveling that the author was able to remember her childhood ordeals in fine details.
The coordinator also agreed with this as she noted that the book was not just written from a first point of view, but from a stream of consciousness point of view.
The dean described the book as a treasure chest full of memories and nostalgia as the author carefully unwraps these nuggets of memories and one could again smell the rich musty smell of well preserved treasures.
18th September, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: Abule Oja Corals of Youth Ifeoma Idigbe Ikechukwu Obiaya Joke Sylvia MARGARET Olele Yaba
