Diana soon arrives..

The past few days have witnessed frantic activity to make sure everything glides along for Diana Evans' Nigeria tour with Cassava Republic. We're at that last minute stage where we're sure we've forgotten to do something, but can't remember what it is. There's been the inevitable curve balls in the past few days - the scariest being not able to buy Diana's airticket. British Airways in their wisdom don't allow 3rd parties to buy tickets to Nigeria; quite why is beyond me, given that one is using a British bank to pay. It just seems like blatant prejudice against Nigeria. Thankfully, we sorted out that little problem another way. Then there's the issue of making sure no one is forgotten on the invite list. Hopefully we've got all bases covered, but doubtless some incredibly important culturati type will emerge out of nowhere and demand to know why we forgot to invite them.

So now we look forward to welcoming her back to another kind of home and introducing her powerfully written book to a Nigerian readership at large. The tour should go really well - at least as well as the original tour we put on for Chimamanda Adichie Purple Hibiscus tour a couple of years ago - with upcoming local poets and musicians adding flavour to each event.