Editorial

Charlie Hebdo's Ghost

Amatoritsero Ede

Contemporary democratic ideals about Freedom of Expression is distilled into that metonymic and tired but valid catchall, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” It is usually buried amongst other common aphorisms – buried, that is, but not forgotten. This is because flowers have grown over that ‘grave’ expression and yielded overgrown fruits. Some of the most round and constipative of them (for human rights violators) are the numerous PEN centres around the world or Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. All are part of about eighty sundry rights NGOs, which make up the umbrella group, International Freedom of Expression Exchange or IFEX. The Cartoonists Rights Network International is of urgent concern here, even if only indirectly – by way of the Parisian cartoon publication, Charlie Hebdo. It is in support of that lively organ belonging to the body of the aforementioned sister NGO that the American PEN centre suddenly finds itself in a ‘cartoonish’ fit in which individual writer-members disagree fiercely in the public and throw darts – poisoned pens – at each other across different ideological streets.

Home is a Hunger beyond Lunch

(Poet, Amatoritsero Ede in conversation with novelist, Esi Edugyan)

Amatoritsero Ede: Esi, we are excited to have you on MTLS. First, what was the inspiration for Half-Blood Blues, your most recent novel.

Esi Edugyan: In 2005, I went to live in Germany on a fellowship, in Stuttgart, a city in the South. As a black woman in Germany, I began to wonder about the history of black people in Germany, and I came across the story of the so-called Rhineland Bastards, children born to German women and French black colonial soldiers at the close of the First World War. I wondered what had happened to those children during the Third Reich.

A.E.: A historically bigoted pre-war Germany is important as setting to Half Blood Blues. Is it a coincidence that a writing residency in today’s Germany also started you on this novel? In other words, how much has contemporary Germany left its racial sentiments and social divides behind from your experience of the place?

Between Nurture and Nature

(Amatoritsero Ede in conversation with Artist, John Kinsella)

Amatoritsero Ede: How did you begin your artistic journey?

John Kinsella: First of all, I would like to thank you, Amatoritsero, for this amazing opportunity to tell you and your readers about my paintings and poems.
Nature plus nurture; I was born into an artistic family. My father was a plasterer/poet/writer; my mother painted murals on the bedroom walls; and all four of my siblings are artistic. As a child, I expressed myself in any medium I chose, including writing, painting, music, etc. Growing up in such a creative environment, I just thought that is what everyone did. My home was a very supportive environment to be a creative person, and making pictures is something I have always liked doing.

A.E.: What inspired your ‘Algonquin Paintings’?

J.K.: Nature’s restorative power. All through my childhood years our family vacation consisted of a two-week camping trip somewhere in the beautiful forests of Southern Ontario. For many years my father chose Algonquin Park as the place we would visit, explore and commune with nature.

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