infobuzz

I understand why Marlon James calls his new trilogy “an African Game of Thrones” — it builds the right expectations for an epic fantasy with dozens of characters spread across warring kingdoms. However, judging by the first book in the series, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, another apt comparison, especially when it comes to style and structure, might be “an African Gormenghast.”

Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series (1946-1959), if you’ve never read it, is a dense literary labyrinth that makes A Game of Thrones and its sequels look downright old-fashioned. The story of a wealthy heir who lives in a vast, crumbling castle, Gormenghast has never been wildly popular thanks to its challenging style, but it does hold cult status among scholars and writers like Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Sofia Samatar, even Harold Bloom. “Reading it at the age of 13,” Samatar has written, “I understood that fantasy, the place I was looking for, is not to be found in dragons, ghosts, or magic wands. It resides in language.”

Growing up in the suburbs of Kingston, Jamaica, Marlon James didn’t have access to many fantasy novels, but he did stumble upon Gormenghast as an adult. “It was like a blueprint for how the fantastical grows up,” he says, echoing Samatar, adding that it’s the one book that “continues to rule his life.”

Perhaps that’s why Black Leopard, Red Wolf takes so many narrative risks. It’s a sprawling series of stories within stories that fold back on themselves, a hypnotic spoken-word fable full of sex, violence, and magic. It’s not quite what you’re expecting — and it’s all the better for it.

Our narrator is a man called Tracker, known for his supernatural sense of smell, which makes it possible for him to locate anyone, no matter how distant, so long as he knows their scent. Accompanied by a shapeshifting man-leopard, he joins a quest to find a missing child. The world they traverse resembles sub-Saharan Africa, but is populated with giants, witches, anti-witches, and creatures that are difficult to describe because they aren’t based on any pre-existing mythology.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar says he would end the lingering strike by university lecturers in the country, from his first day at work, if he wins the forthcoming presidential election
– Atiku said he was shocked that Nigerian students are not being educated due to the ASUU strike caused by an unresolved debate of about N60 billion
– The presidential candidate said the 2019 presidential election presents an opportunity for a turning point in the development of the country
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has pledged that if elected as Nigeria’s next president, he would end the lingering strike by university lecturers in the country, from his first day at work.
Atiku made the pledge on Sunday evening at the Silverbird Man of the Year event which took place in Lagos, Punch reports.
Infobuzz.news.blog gathers that the former vice president referred to the ongoing ASUU strike as “disgraceful”; and hence, will receive his first attention as president if voted into office in the February 16 presidential election.
He said: “I am aghast that as I speak, our students across the nation are not being educated due to the ASUU strike caused by an unresolved debate of about N60 billion.
“If I get the job I am seeking, my first task on day one – along with naming my cabinet – will be to end this disgraceful strike and get our students back to their studies.”
Atiku stressed that education plays a central role in the rise to success of any individual or nation and hinted that if he becomes the next president of Nigeria, his administration will triple the budgetary allocation to education to not less than 20 percent, instead of the current seven percent.
He said: “I will also triple the amount the Nigerian government spends on education from 7 percent of its budget today, not just to the 15 percent recommended by UNESCO, but to 20 percent.
“I recognize the value education can bring to the individual and the nation. But even more than that, I want every child in Nigeria to have the opportunities I had.”
Atiku said he has the requisite experience to drive Nigeria to prosperity, pointing out that the 2019 presidential election presents an opportunity for a turning point in the development of the country.
He said that for any individual or nation aiming at greatness, three basic lessons are essential – investment in women, investment in education and investment in opportunities that will create jobs for the people.
Meanwhile, infobuzz previously reported that ahead of the general elections, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Africa once again claimed that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will defeat President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 16 presidential election.
This was disclosed on the Twitter handle of the organisation on Friday, February 1. However, the organisation said the margin of victory will not be much.

In the summer of 2018, 12 members of a Thai junior football team and their coach were successfully rescued from a cave in which they’d become trapped when heavy rains caused sudden flooding. The rescue options ranged from unrealistic to torturous to deadly to mad. At Maclean’s, Shannon Gormley tells the story of the rescue divers who chose “mad” — and succeeded.

Dr. Harry believes the risks of sedating the children beat the risks of not sedating the children. The lead divers believe the same, and the Thais believe the experts know best. The children cannot dive; the children will panic; the children will drown their rescuers and themselves. That is why Dr. Harry is going to do this: inject 12 kids with a sedative so powerful it will knock them out cold.

Ketamine: a horse tranquilizer, an operating-room drug, a soon-to-be cave-rescue pharmaceutical product in its early testing stages on rock-entombed human minors.

If only it were so simple. The children’s drugs will need to be topped up with half-doses along the way. Dr. Harry cannot dive every child out himself, but the divers are not medical doctors. Dr. Harry must give a dozen cave hobbyists and small-business owners a crash course in do-it-yourself anaesthesiology.

If anyone dies—and many divers think they will be lucky to save two or three of the kids—Dr. Harry will bear much of the burden. He is not licensed to practice medicine in Thailand, let alone teach other foreigners to practice. Though Thailand and Australia have offered some assurance that he won’t suffer legal consequences for his young patients’ probable deaths, a conscience and a name are not so easily protected.

Cave divers are solitary creatures, Dr. Harry will later say to the cameras he normally avoids. And as he instructs laymen how to sedate a bunch of boys in the dark before dragging them through a flooded, stalactite-strewn tunnel, Dr. Harry is very alone.

He thinks the drugs might help some children survive. He’s going to try, anyway. That’s the plan. But you never know

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Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton