The Arts-Muse Fair

Abstract Umar Abubakar Sidi’s debut novel, The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus has received critical responses from diverse readers appraising its unique experimentation with metafiction. It is an ambitious undertaking for a first-time novelist known for experimenting with Sufi and Surrealist aesthetics in his poetry. Existing analyses of the text have focused majorly on attempts to extrapolate the sociocultural messages and meanings in the text without recourse to its aesthetic nuances which stands out as a refreshing addition to the expanding body of Nigerian fiction. Hence, this essay attempts a metacritical examination focusing on the craft, aesthetics, structure, and how these elements contribute to the innovative essence of the text drawing from the frameworks of formalism and metafiction. The essay argues that far from serving as a socio-anthropological representation of society, the text embodies the vision of iconoclastic idealism. Keywords: Metafiction, Metacriticism, Ni...

  By Paul Liam Jamila Abbas’ Between the Lines of a Photograph explores the intricate intersection between memory and loss. It x-rays the subliminal emotions of love, pain, and loss symbolically represented by the metaphor of a photograph. A photograph is a mirror into the past, present, and future, it is a representation of our happy and sad moments as we journey through life in search of meaning and purpose. The collection forges an evocative metaphor of nostalgic narratives embodying its subject's memories through a photograph's prism. Thus, between the lines of a photograph lies a rich repertoire of memories discernible only through a careful examination and recollection of past experiences. Abbas presupposes that poetry is akin to a photograph with multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Consequently, it suffices to posit that, nostalgia, love, and loss constitute the larger leitmotif of the collection, in each poem, we encounter a strand of one of these themes thro...