Yasmin El-Rufai Literary Evening and Lecture

Top right: Hadiza El-Rufai (middle) with friends.
Bottom left: Nasir El-Rufai and Hakeem Belo-Osagie with a guest
Right: Hakeem Belo-Osagie talks to NTA.
Photos by INSIDE TRACK ABUJA

Got an invitation to the Yasmin El-Rufai Creative Writing Workshop's Literary Evening and Lecture on the 4th of May 2013 at the Merit House here in Abuja.  On the same day there was a party organised by the Filipino community in Abuja which took place at my residence - which means I had to apologise to the guests that I had to leave and head for Maitama -- and made it just in time to hear Eugenia Abu's lecture on the literary experience, followed by a short speech by the mother of the late Yasmin El-Rufai who read an essay she wrote about her daughter. 

"Yasmin," she said "was more than a daughter to me in that last year I spent with her. She became my friend. She was involved with everything I did. She got to know many of my course mates. She attended our readings and other activities. She critiqued my writing, and what a wonderful critic she was. Every time she looked at my work she made it better." (You may read the whole essay HERE).

The event, which was under the chairmanship of Hakeem Belo-Osagie, was organised by Tunji Ajibade's outfit called Exodus For Art. 

Read a report about the literary evening by Sueddie Agema HERE.