Follow Richard Ali:
Richard Ali
Richard Ali, a lawyer, was born in Kano, Nigeria and grew up in the resort
town of Jos. He holds an LL.B in Civil Law from the Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2010. He was the youngest
magazine Editor in Nigeria at the Kaduna-based Sardauna Magazine
[2004—2006].
Author of the warmly received 2012 novel, City of Memories, Richard is also
Editor-in-Chief of the Sentinel Nigeria Magazine and was a runner-up at the
2008 John la Rose Short Story Competition. In March 2008, he was selected
amongst 50 other emerging Nigerian writers to participate in the British
Council’s Radiophonics Workshop. He joined the Sentinel Literary Movement of
Nigeria in 2011 and has undertaken the editing of its quarterly Sentinel
Nigeria Magazine [www.sentinelnigeria.org] since then. He is also on the
Board of the pan-African Transcultural Academy chaired by Beverly Nambozo
Nsengiyunva at the forefront of redefining African literature and its study.
In 2011, at the International Convention of the Association of Nigerian
Authors, he was elected as Publicity Secretary [North] for a term of two
years after having served at the Plateau State chapter for years. He was
reelected unanimously in the same office in 2013.
Richard completed a 6-week Residency at the Ebedi Writers Residency Program
in 2012, attended the Chimamanda Adichie-led Farafina Workshop in 2012 and
was a Guest at the 2013 Ake Book and Arts Festival, Abeokuta. He also was a
participant in the GRANTA-British Council New Writing workshop held in
Nairobi in 2013. He lives in Abuja where he practices law and runs Parrésia
Publishers Ltd where he serves as Chief Operating Officer. He is unmarried
and enjoys chess, reading and travelling.
He is working on his debut collection of poems, The Divan.
Published Books
city of memories
Faruk Ibrahim, a Muslim, travels from Jos to Bolewa, a little town his
parents fled when he was a two year old. He has just broken up with his
Christian fiancée, Rahila Pam, and his journey was originally so he could
come to terms with the complexity of their relationship. His mother had died
of a mental illness caused by an event which occured in Bolewa which his
father refuses to speak of, so Faruk’s returning to Bolewa is also so he can
find out for himself the trauma that caused his mother’s fatal breakdown.
One more reason for the trip is that his ex-fiance’s mother, the
once-feminist Eunice Pam, wants to kill him because he has seriously
assaulted her son and he happens to be the only child of her most formidable
political rival.
The love between Faruk and Rahila is stalemated by the politics of his
father, Colonel Dibarama and of her mother, Eunice Pam who represents the
integrative and disintegrative social forces in Nigeria. A further
complexity is the burden of identity that Rahila feels being a Christian
from the North Central State in a largely Muslim Northern Nigeria. The fault
lines of Nigeria become the fault lines of their relationship.
In Bolewa, Faruk teaches at a Government school where a girl, Maryam, falls
in love with him. He gradually uncovers the past of his mother and the
rivalry between two bluebloods - Usman and Ahmed {later a Christian} - who
loved her and the fratricide and devastation their love wrought on Bolewa,
forcing her to flee and subsequently lose her mind. In Jos, Eunice Pam and
Ibrahim Dibarama spar while Rahila, still in love with him,
flounders.
Matters get to a head when Eunice Pam helps sponsor a religious disturbance
with the aim of killing Muslims in the North Central State and driving the
rest off to the Northwestern and North-eastern States. Colonel Dibarama,
with the help of his old army buddy, General Hassan Abba, who is the new
Nigerian dictator are able to nip the crisis in the bud and Mrs. Pam is
placed under house arrest. When Rahila finds this out, she is so disgusted
she leaves home for a religious seminary. Faruk, who survives an attempted
murder, returns from the Northeast and finds she is gone. He seeks her out
and they are reconciled.
