Home // February.28.2018 // Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Nostalgia, Stories and Solidarity
Otosirieze Obi-Young is Deputy Editor at Brittle Paper and a lecturer at Godfrey Okoye University in Enugu in southeastern Nigeria. His writing has appeared in anthologies and journals including Transition and The Threepenny Review, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship and the Gerald Kraak Award.
Our man on the ground in that part of the world is Chukwuebuka "Leonard" Ibeh, based in Port Harcourt. He caught up with Obi-Young to have a conversation, from a writer just getting started to something with more experience under his belt, about personal history, style in fiction, and the perception of so-called African writers within Africa itself and outside of it.
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Find Obi-young on Twitter @Otosirieze |
Leonard Ibeh: I would say it is an honor to have you, but then, of course, you would know that already. My pleasure, Obi-Young.
Otosirieze Obi-Young: Thank you for having me, Leonard.
LI: What personal impressions do you have of yourself, as regards your profession?
OO: I think of myself as an observer, a listener, a reader. I have always been fascinated by stories, by the simple pleasure of listening to or seeing or reading one, but also by what makes a particular story compelling and another bland, why certain stories easily yield their meanings and some remain folded up in themselves, and how stories are preserved. And because I'm on a perpetual hunt for documentable narratives, seeking them out wherever I can, I find myself seriously interested in a range of areas—literature, history and politics, music, religion, film, football, fashion, philosophy, physics, trading—and, to the broadest extent, people. It's this that led to me studying history and literature: two fields that are basically about stories and how they are told and received and the effects that all these have. I finished the program in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2014.
LI: On style as an important feature in (contemporary) writing amongst African writers, would you say there is a difference in the manner by which stories are being told between this (modern) generation and the former?
OO: In the stylistic sense you talk about, obviously. The former generations of Black African writers—the first and second sets of Achebe, Ngugi, Armah, Bessie Head particularly—wrote straight, occasionally “simple” prose that was still robust. Because developments in their literature were dictated by developments in politics, there was a sense of urgency, and so there was, generally speaking, rarely any overbearing emphasis on style. It was as though style would pose a distraction to the substance of their subjects. Things drastically changed with the third generation, with the beautifully daring writing of Dambudzo Marechera, Tsitsi Danganremgba, and Ben Okri, all of whom were also moving beyond the thematic concerns of their predecessors. Our contemporary generation, with the totally lyrical prose of Adichie, Teju Cole, Taiye Selasi, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Aminatta Forna, is a culmination of sorts; the point where things have fallen together. This is the generation that prioritizes the emotional as much as it does the political, or as a blurb in Igoni Barrett's Love Is Power, or Something Like That puts it, “captures both the quotidian and the elevated.” The whole story is presented whole, small details and all. They understand how the small builds up to the large. This fierce prose and its fierce gaze on everything is what makes them so different from their predecessors.
LI: Your Pushcart-nominated story “A Tenderer Blessing” [published in 2015 in The Threepenny Review] was set in Nsukka. It also happens that you are an alumnus of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. How much has Nsukka, the university and the community as a whole, influenced your writing?
OO: If I hadn't gone to Nsukka, it is possible that I might not be writing the way I do now, may not have a grasp of certain things without which the intensity of one's writing may be sabotaged. Attending UNN, meeting the invaluably brilliant community of young writers in my last two years there—called The Writers' Community, TWC—helped incredibly to speed up my development. So naturally, Nsukka is a constant in my writing, alongside Aba where I was born and grew up. Once you've lived there, there's something irresistible about that beautiful campus, some inexhaustibly mysterious thing about the streets lined with trees, the statues, the thick buildings. Perhaps it's mere attachment, but whatever it is, it is the reason why you read descriptions of the campus in Adichie's novels and you just want to go there. And I'm not talking about Adichie's superhuman descriptive skills, I'm talking about the campus being described. “A Tenderer Blessing” sprang from the opening line:
The university campus in Nsukka was full of ixora, and it was beside one of the trimmed hedges in our Faculty of Arts, stoic, green tables with red blossoms, that Nnaemeka first spoke to me, igniting a friendship that will, as long as I breathe, remain an indelible part of my existence.
... which itself sprang from post-graduation nostalgia.
LI: Is there a theme you are likely to avoid while writing?
OO: I describe a lot and analyze a lot. And there is no kind of story, or subject matter, I would avoid writing if it interested me. Although, if a story I'm writing is based on real events, I try my best to protect people around me if it is their stories that I am borrowing.
LI: This is a spoiler of sorts, because, well, why not? Ha! So: “A Tenderer Blessing” depicts the dilemma of a drug and sex addict who finds himself somewhat attracted to a young, popular boy after rescuing him from an asthma attack. I think the story's very appealing in so many ways—how it subtly portrays the lurking vulnerability under the tough disguise, and all that. What led to the story?
OO: A private experience, middle of February last year. I was chatting with a close friend on WhatsApp, a university classmate, and, you know, when you're fresh from Convocation you tend to think about school in nostalgic terms. We got to a rare moment when every tie we had—nostalgia, friendship, uncertainty of sorts—came together in a couple of lines we exchanged. And I thought: This is so true. I wrote the story in the following four days, fueled by the first part of the opening sentence which I'd written much earlier.
My family and friends have long thought me a writer, but I first thought myself one when “A Tenderer Blessing” came out. Funny, because by then I'd been a published writer for two years and had even sent queries to agents.
LI: Once, at a book reading in Port Harcourt, a man refused to present his poem because he had been introduced as a “poet.” Apparently, he had always found the title unappealing and had requested in the past not to be addressed as a poet for any reason. I also come across really brilliant people who write—and even go on to publish—really amazing work, but refuse to be addressed as writers. It's a phenomenon I'd probably never understand! Do you identify as a “writer,” or are you likely to reject the title?
OO: I find it amusing! While I can't tell why the poet reacted in that manner, I do know that the “don't call me a writer” attitude—which, it must be noted, isn't the same as “I am not a writer”—comes from the said writer's relationship with responsibility.
Such writers are either humbled by the implied responsibility, maybe even feeling undeserving of it all, or they detest the notion that writers must shoulder this responsibility to society that other artists aren't always burdened with. Because “writer” can so easily be turned into a metaphor for “voice of the society.” It is the same attitude that births responses like, “I am a writer, not an African writer.” It's the same scramble, away from responsibility imposed by others. Writers are different human beings with even more different approaches to writing, so the rejection of the title of writer isn't something I worry about. I can't say it's good or not good: people have the right to reject tags or be intimidated by tags. I only find it amusing.
I accept that I am a writer even if I don't think of it consciously. I call myself a few other things, but I always forget “writer.” Perhaps the reason I understand the plight of those who reject it is because for me too there is a title that frightens me: “storyteller.”
“Storyteller” is bigger than “writer,” larger than life, but it is the one that easily comes to my mind and, still, I don't imagine rejecting it. My family and friends have long thought me a writer, but I first thought myself one when “A Tenderer Blessing” came out last year. Funny, because by then I'd been a published writer for two years and had even sent queries to agents. In a way, I'm passive about it all. Generally, the word “writer” is something people wield like a sword to battle personal doubts and draw public regard.
LI: There have been instances of writers resisting the (infamous) label of “African writer.” Petina Gapah for example refused to be called a “Zimbabwean writer.” Chimamanda Adichie also argued that the tag was restrictive and limiting in a sense, citing the fact that writers in America are simply called “writers.” E. C. Osondu on the other hand has firmly stated that he is an “African writer,” and that he doesn't understand the paranoia of this label. When Tope Folarin won the Caine Prize in 2013, he was criticized for not being an “African writer” because, apparently, having lived all his years in the diaspora had somehow eliminated his African-ness. What do you think? Do you call yourself an “African writer”?
OO: It's a multi-faceted issue. Pettinah Gappah rejected it because she was described as “the voice of Zimbabwe,” which is ridiculous—Western authors aren't designated as their country's assigned voices. But Adichie also admits to being diplomatic about the whole thing: she says yes or no depending on how the question comes and, according to
her, it's Africans who ask her that.
Saying you're an “African writer” to a curious African means a sort of solidarity with your people; saying “no” means you're pandering to the West. Admitting so to a Westerner has political implications: you become a voice. But it also has advantages! Chibundu Onuzo once said, tongue in cheek, that she gets more invitations to festivals and panels than her English counterparts do, partly because she's African. She has no issues with the tag as long as it sells books; which is a funny way to put it because Westerners actually are curious about Africa.
I think Tope Folarin's case mostly arose from overprotective Caine Prize zealots threatened by the presence of an American African on a shortlist that was meant to be just African. Fortunately, his inclusion helped clarify questions about who should be called African, what makes one African. Is it one's parents' origin? One's own place of birth? Folarin himself admits to not knowing he was eligible. And this complicates the situation of writers with dual nationalities, like the brilliant Aminatta Forna who's Sierra Leonean-Scottish. And it's all part of this overarching misreading of African literature as something exotic.
Forna penned an essay about the shelving of her books, that books ought to be shelved according to subject-matter rather than the author's nationality. Why would her novel The Hired Man, which is set in Croatia with Croatian characters, be placed in the African section because the author is pegged as “African”? It's a long conversation that won't be exhausted soon. It can only end when our literature ceases to be misread this disastrously. As for me, the politics isn't something I'd love to be caught up in but I've always had this thought, that until my father tells me he's from Europe I would always wear my “African writer” badge.
LI: Are you working on anything that is set to be out soon?
OO: I'm working on a collection of stories but I'm still hoping to find an agent.
LI: Good luck with it! Many thanks for your time, Obi-Young.
OO: You're welcome, and thank you too.
With thanks to BU BookLab editorial intern Nicholas Rodelo for his assistance in preparing this piece for publication.
Banner graphic: A photo (cropped) of Nnamdi Azikiwe Library at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, taken in 2017 by Wikimedia contributor Udeagbala. Used here under the terms the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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