The challenges of being a writer - Razinat (interview)

Razinat Talatu Mohammed’s collection of short stories, A Love Like a Woman’s and Other Stories, published to critical acclaim in 2006, heralds a triumphant entry into the Nigerian literary scene. Indeed, the book demonstrates Razinat’s acuity of vision, depth of creativity and crisp, matured language that is, at once, controlled and resolutely poetic. Her stories (and to certain degree, her poetry) often centred on mundane, everyday happenings, portrayed with equally simple everyday images and concerns, are focalized from women’s perspective without betraying any larger feminist concern.Razinat, who is also a noted poet, was born in 1964 in Maiduguri, Borno State. She has a PhD in African Literature from the University of Maiduguri where she presently teaches. Her thesis is on the phenomenon of women suppressing women in African novels, with particular emphasis on the works of Niwal El-Saadawi and Buchi Emecheta. Her short stories and poems have been published in Vultures in the Air, Let the Dawn Come, Camouflage: The Best of Contemporary Writings from Nigeria, and Pyramids: An Anthology of Poems from Northern Nigeria. Her collection of short stories won the maiden Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA)/Lantern Books Prize for Short Stories while still in manuscript. And her academic writings have been widely published. Razinat is currently working on her first novel and a collection of poems. She has been guest writer/speaker at workshops and seminars involved with the sensitization and mentoring of women in their participation in politics and activities to promote the reproductive rights of women.In this email interview conducted by Ismail Bala of the Department of English and French, Bayero University, Kano, in 2008, Razinat talks about her writings, the challenges of being a writer, especially in Northern Nigeria and the enterprise of criticism and Nigerian Literature generally.
NNW: Let’s start with some biographical information.
Razinat Talaru Muhammed: I was born in Maiduguri to the family of Alhaji. Mohammed Abubakar and Falmata Mohammed. The first of eight children. I was educated at Gwange Primary School, Maiduguri, Federal Government College, Ido-Ani, and the University of Maiduguri.
I’d like to know how you started writing, and why?
I began creating images and writing scripts from my secondary school days at FGC Ido-Ani in Ondo State. Writing poems and short stories began while I was studying English at the University of Maiduguri in the late eighties. I would like to say I have a flair for writing.
How difficult was it for you to get published?
The issue of getting a manuscript published in Nigeria has become a nightmare for young writers. It was the same experience for me. As I talk to you now, my first manuscript is still gathering dust somewhere in a store belonging to Malthouse. The publisher called me once in 2001 and promised to send some galley proof and contract papers, which I am sure, are still in the post.
It seems to me that the focus in your writing is, in a way, on exploring relationship between people.
Well, life itself is all about relationships, and creativity simply, has to explore that from different dimensions.
When you write, do you sketch out a plot for yourself, or do you just start and see where it leads?
I sketch out a plot at the on-set; somehow, the plots often take control and execute themselves. I am always amazed at the points when the story ‘begs’ to take charge of the events in the work. It is a wonderful feeling.
So what is the impulse to write?
From the desire to add yet another voice to the multitude. And perhaps to, specifically, give expression to the way of life of the people of my community; the North-East region of this country.
How far is your writing from your own experience?
They are far enough. I am comfortable with both male and female protagonists that I create.
I wonder why you chose the short story form and whether you felt that that was something that came naturally or did you have to force it into that form?
The short story thrills me a lot. I like the fact that I compress ideas into a page and create tension in the reader, such that he or she wonders at the outcome of some unresolved conflicts.
As one of the few women writers who are using the medium English from Northern Nigeria, do you feel a special responsibility to be an ambassador for your culture?
Naturally, the essence of writing for me, in the first place, stems from the desire to expound the way of life and highlight the realities of the many cultures of the people of the North- East as a whole.
Which writer or writers inspired you?
The power in the pens of writers such as Nawal El-Saadawi, and Buchi Emecheta, Isabel Allande, Fay Weldon, Alice Walker and our own Zaynab Alkali have greatly moved me. I have great respect for the master artisan, late Sidney Sheldon.
How do you incorporate oral tradition into your writings?
Whenever appropriate I make recourse into the rich reservoir of oral tradition by recollecting or asking elders to explain phenomenon that I am not able to reconcile with today’s happenings.
Do you ever wish that you were not "charged" with this seemingly agonizing responsibility to write?
Not for once have I had reasons to regret being a writer. Although writing can be a tiring and lonesome preoccupation, it gives me great pleasure to delve into the minds of prototype people.
Are writers different from other people?
No they are not. There are writers that are party going just as any other person of other professions. In the same vein, there are eccentric people in other professions as can be found among writers.
Some people have complained that the current climate of criticism of African Literature has not, in many ways, matched the creative outputs. What do you think account for this?
I think it is due to poor reading culture that has engulfed the nation as a whole. We are all busy writing stories and forgetting to examine the qualities of the already published ones. To be a good critic one needs to be a very good reader capable of projecting arguments to their logical conclusions.
What was the most crucial period of your life as a writer and critic?
As a writer, the most crucial period has been when I lost a full-length manuscript to a computer mishap. I had not developed the habit of saving every document on discs. It was a very trying period for me because I had the mind to forget about computers altogether. You see, I had to take a decision to begin the book again and to persevere and master the use of computers. As a critic, I think that my anti-feminist stance, that women are their own problem is crucial to my life as a critic.
The label "woman" and "writer", what do these mean to you?
Precisely what they stand for. Woman for the female sex and writer for the person that takes interest in writing. If placed together, it will mean, the woman who involves herself with the art of writing.
Is a Northern Nigerian woman writer, in your view, different from her colleagues elsewhere, say from those in the Southern part?
No, she is not any different from her Southern female counterparts. There could be differences only in their style of writing in addition to the different cultures that they obviously most portray in their works.
What is the unique contribution of women to African Literature and literary scholarship?
Well, women have contributed significantly in the re-definition of the image of the female character in the works of early male writers. Women writers can now come up with female protagonists that contribute to the lives of people in their communities. Examples abound in works like The Descendants by Alkali and El-Saadawi’s Searching and many more like them. In the area of literary scholarship, names like Catherine Acholonu’s scholarly text Motherism: A Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s Recreating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations and many more, are good examples of the unique contributions of women to African Literature.
Would you like to explain your writing process? Is writing stories in a way the same as writing criticism?
No, writing stories come naturally unlike criticism that requires a great deal of articulation. This is so because it is not easy to fault a work or proffer a line of argument without merit.
Could you say something about your collection of short stories, A Love Like a Woman’s and other Stories?
It is a collection of eleven stories of varied themes. Some of the themes provide insight into the issue of women oppressing of women. I must add that it was not a deliberate manipulation to reflect this point.
How long did the whole work take you to write?
A period of say, six years, because I did not write continuously back then.
There is a circle of exciting young (and not so young) writers in Nigeria at present, could you tell us something about this community (of which you are very much, a part of)?
Every country certainly has these groups of writers. In Nigeria, we have more young writers today, although I cannot say that they are getting their works off their writing tables. It is, however, good to know that in spite of the unfavourable conditions that the writer in this country is faced by, some good works still emerge. In the light of the existing difficulties faced by the Nigerian writer, Teju Cole in his book, Every Day is for the Thief laments the courage of the Nigerian writer.
It appears that the fact that you studied and currently teaching (African) Literature prepared you for a conscious manipulation (if the phrase is permitted) of your writing towards the larger women question, towards the concern of feminism; could you comment on that in relation to your writing career?
Not really, although one cannot altogether divorce one’s intellect from one’s creation, I can say that my stories assume their natural ambience in fiction.
Do you consider the present direction and attitude (and even in a displaced way, temperament) in the criticism of African Literature as relevant?
It is unfortunate that African critics, most often, get carried away from their primary goals of examining texts logically and delve into personalised criticism that are irrelevant to the text in focus. Often, one reads criticisms that are mere personal responses to creative works as if the writer had intended to fault their lives one way or the other.
In what way did the Maiduguri experience contribute to your "growth" as a writer? By Maiduguri experience, I mean that University of Maiduguri has been known to have a number of established writers who taught there, such as Zaynab Alkali, Tanure Ojaide, Syl Cheney-Coker, etc; how has the presence or refutation of such authors helped you grow as a writer?
I most say that I have been very fortunate to have been taught by Tanure Ojaide and Zaynab Alkali. Syl Cheney-Coker especially added colour to the cream of lecturers that we had then. I think that those of us who were lucky to be under their tutelage really have cause to be thankful to them.
African women writings have been often read solely and in my opinion narrowly within the context of what one critic calls "representational problematic" in which the text becomes simply and uncharacteristically the very image of a given reality. And when this reading is done (as it is always done) interpretation, the whole gamut of meaning remained "trapped", so to speak, in mere descriptions and/or analyses which only bring about the "normative knowledge" of such writings. Could you comment on this?
That is the problem with most readers of women’s works. Most think that a woman is not capable of writing outside the "representational problematic" which to them, always spells the "reality" of all women. I want to say that such austere reading should begin to give way to a more pragmatic outlook of a world of possibilities where the image of women in African women’s writings do not provide the much expected "normative" ideals.
And what is your opinion to the effect that the most desirable (perhaps even politically correct) reading of African women’s writing is one which is done within a feminist framework?
You know that when some people have little or nothing to say, they tend to hide behind feminism simply because a work of art is written by a woman. I think feminism has become a large masquerade that provides cover for many bad dancers; by this, I mean that many so-called critics hide under the cover of feminism and all they seem to be doing is classifying every work written by a woman as feminist work. It is really getting out of hand. I think that there are other parts to the lives of women (even in African Literature) other than woman fighting to get free of man’s holds.
Many critics (both male and female) have severely criticised the narrow purview of feminist literary analysis, since, the argument goes, what feminist reading does or relies on is to introduce gender as the all-important category in literary analysis; and it is assumed that this would enable the critic to see representations in texts as mediated and determined by sexual difference, aesthetic and political assumptions which also affect gender. What is your take on this controversial proposition?
In literary analysis, proper identification of gender roles can go a long way in ending the narrow purview as you put it.
Are you ever bothered that the cultural references in your stories would limit its audience?
No, rather, I think it would attract a wider readership. We crave to read works from Mexico, Brazil, etc because we want to know about them. It is the same with our own works.
In one of your critical essays on the Egyptian writer, Nawal El-Saadawi’s Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, you perceptively offered a radically divergent standpoint, one which is different from that of the conventional feminist discourse by outlining the thesis that oppression of the girl-child within the Egyptian society (and indeed within the larger African society) is a direct outcome of the girl-child’s upbringing at home. Could you expatiate on this a little more?
Well, from my study of that book, it became obvious that the girl child suffers a devastating childhood due to her relationship with her mother at home.
In your doctoral dissertation you sought to carry out an intra-gender study of oppression suffered by women as portrayed in women text, what informed this concern?
It became increasingly obvious to me that all the texts studied portray a common demeanour in the female characters; especially, the works of El-Saadawi and Emecheta. I then thought it was necessary to examine in details the reasons why all the female characters persistently abhor their relationship with other female characters ranging from the mother, sister, mother in-law and so forth.
Still on your essay on El-Saadawi’s Memoirs of a Woman Doctor you wrote: Nawal El-Saadawi’s Memoirs of a Woman Doctor convincingly proves that, in as much as there is the wider current of patriarchy in which men are portrayed in literature as "subjects" and women as "others" or "objects", there is a narrower, more subtle supporting undercurrent of matriarchal subversion that runs in society and is reflected in the works of African women writers like El-Saadawi and others. What informed this assertion, do you still hold on to this?
The finding of that study informs that imperative conclusion, and yes, I still strongly hold on to the notion.
What do you think of the short story these days, either those written in Nigeria or generally?
The shorter narrative is increasingly becoming more popular than it had been say some twenty years ago. If you go on the Internet, you will find more calls for entries for the short story than for a full-length novel.
The fiery, controversial young critic, E. E. Sule of Nasarawa State University is of the view that female writings in Nigeria and indeed in Africa are self-identifying; because, he argues, their themes easily betray their feministic goals. What is your position on this?
That same story again. The first mistake that a critic makes when he has to examine a text whose author is a woman is to tag it feminist. Such over generalisation, beclouds any good intention that the critic may stitch into his/her criticism. What for instance, is "self identifying" in Alkali’s The Initiates? You see, often, women write about other themes but most of our critics would scratch and search through gabs and lines to hinge such women’s works to feminism.
Many critics have strongly argued that women writers often sacrifice artistry and aesthetics simply for carrying over the feminist theme. How do you respond to this supposedly clichéd criticism?
It certainly has become a cliché. As mentioned before, critics who hope to catch attention by merely mentioning feminism need to research further into other equally exciting literary theories.
Some writers (Ben Okri, for instance) would object to any suggestion about their childhood appearing in their writings, arguing that childhood being a complex manipulations of memory that only fiction can provide and safely account for. Have you ever been tempted to recreate certain facets of your childhood in your stories?
No, but I could do so in the future.
Finally what are your plans for the future in terms of your writing and criticism?
My plans cannot depart from the current trend. I am primarily a lecturer who must research extensively while at the same time, creating time to pursue writing, which I want to see as my first hobby.

(c) Published in the 7th March, 2009 edition of New Nigerian newspapers.

True creative writer preserves culture

PROF YAKUBU NASIDI, former two-term Deputy Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, speaks to the New Nigerian Weekly acting editor, Mr. Andrew Fadason, on literature and other related issues.

NNW: Considering the fact that there are very few professors of Comparative Literatures in the country and the brain-drain syndrome that affected the country in the past, has there been any temptation of abandoning the country for greener pastures?

Professor Yakubu Nasidi: In fact, I was employed and was due to leave and teach at the University of Virginia, but just about a week before my departure, Prof. Nayaya Mohammed who was then vice chancellor sent people to me that I should not go anywhere and made me the Director of Nigeria Cultural Studies. That was why I stayed back. My families are there up till today. My wife and three of my children are there. So, I would have been part of the brain drain but for some act of destiny I did not go to the United States. I would have gone there. But I don’t really think that it is the best thing. It is very easy to leave this country and go and join in the task of building other peoples’ country which you call Nigerians in the Diaspora. That is what you are doing and there is nothing really heroic about it. You go and join in building other peoples’ country and then you give yourself an attractive title, Nigerians in the Diaspora. I think that people should stay back here and I am very happy I didn’t go anywhere. Inspite of the problems and the crisis, I am happy I stayed back and this is where every Nigerian belongs. Frankly speaking, I think we should all be here.
I am happy that the National Assembly is doing all that they can to attract these Nigerians back to their country so that we can join heads together in building this country up. When I was in the United States, I had what is called Teaching Assistanceship. I did not apply for it. One day, I just saw my name that I was to work with one Prof. Braithman who w our professor in Comparative Literature. I worked with him for one semester and e kind of questions the white students used to ask me were very funny questions. Then I said "look, I have no business being here" and that was when I made up my mind. I did well, but after one semester, I gave it up myself. But, it is a curious thing for you to be there. People have developed their country and you are there pretending to know more than they know. So, after my PhD, I came back to this country and I am still here.

To the ordinary man out there, or to the average student, what does it mean when you talk about comparative literature?

It would basically mean comparing the literature of two or more nations; or two cultures or two people and that is why you have to be somewhat bilingual or multi lingual. It also means an emphasis on theory which you don’t have in traditional literary studies. In comparative literature, the emphasis is on theory, being rigorous with your category on knowing the multi disciplinary perspectives of the discipline itself. That is the difference. It is more comprehensive and more multi disciplinary than traditional literary studies.

One of the problems we have in Nigeria today is that the younger ones are no longer interested in creative writing. As someone with vast experience in this area, how are you encouraging the younger ones to take interest in creative writing?

I think there is a basic problem here. Generally, I read some of these pieces. But right now, emphasis have shifted to the newspapers and a lot of critical works are now to be found in the newspapers. It is in the newspapers that you now find short stories and other critical works. I wish that people could write in our native language. That is what I spent a lot of my time in the United States wondering about. That you are writing in someone else’s language and then claiming to be creative. Do you see the paradox there? The true creative writer must help in the preservation of culture and the way to preserve your culture is to write in your language. I was listening to the BBC the other day and the rate at which languages are disappearing the world over is quite alarming. If you look at the world generally, it is becoming mono-cultural and that is what they are calling globalization and I think it is a terrible thing. Read the Quran and the Bible and you will see that God made different people so that we can understand ourselves. The world was not meant to be the same.
Globalization is nothing but the triumph of the West. They are stamping their identity on our culture and the rest of the world and using the term globalization. I think that the true creative writer must help to preserve his people’s culture. By writing in English language and French and calling it African literature doesn’t help. I think that the young people should be brought to an awareness of the dangers of this problem. That is where creativity will start.

(c) Published in the 9th May 2009 edition of New Nigerian newspaper.

I have books that are yet to be published - Binta (interview)

Binta S. Mohammed, who passed on 4th May, 2009, is a notable poet and novelist and a lecturer in the Department of English at Bayero University, Kano. She had an interesting interview session with Muhammad Kabir Yusuf last year. Here are excerpts from the interview.

QUESTION: Readers may want to know your literary background and your earliest experience with the world of writing.

Binta S. Muhammed: I started writing when I was in secondary school. That was in the mid 80s; and I got inspired through reading. I read so many books written by both European and African writers. I started with poetry. The first poem I wrote was titled ‘Tree’. That time I was just sitting down under a tree and raised up my head and looked at the tree, then I got the inspiration to write the poem.

What were the things that made you believe that you could really write and you had a message to send through writing?

Once you are a writer and you have the talent, you have a responsibility to tell people what you think about life as well as saying for them what they would rather say but they cannot. This is the reason why if people read a literary work, they feel relieved, as if they are the ones saying them. So, literature is a two-way traffic between both the reader and the writer. The writer eases up his emotion by writing, so also the reader when he reads.

Going through your anthology of poem tells the reader that you really look at things differently from the way ordinary minded people look at them. Why is that?

As a writer, you can just walk out there and see grasses. So as a writer, you need to give it a second look. But as an ordinary person, you just look at it and that is all. That is the difference between a writer and someone who is not. They see things differently and look at things differently.

It is amazing that you have dual personality: academic writer and creative writer at the same time. How do you marry the two?

I don’t think they are a lot different. I see them as complementary to one another. As an academic, I deal with books and I analyse the text. And as a writer, I produce the text. So I don’t think there is a lot of difference. I read, I teach and I even teach creative writing. So, they are more or less the same thing.

Ever since you produced your novel and your anthology, you ceased to produce any literary work. Did anything happen to your muse?

Well, I can’t say. But then I have books that are yet to be published. I have a collection of poems, which is ready and in the press. And I also have a book which is more academic. It is a textbook on creative writing, which will come out soon. The two books will hopefully come out before the year runs out.

You came from the part of Nigeria which is considered culturally conservative. To what extent do you think the culture and religion of the North influence your writing?

As Ngugi said, "Writers never exist in a vacuum". You write out of experiences. You must belong to a society. The society in turn shapes your thinking, experiences and so on. So, as a writer, as a woman and a person from the North, all these forces shape my thinking and my writing.
I have to, first of all, see myself as a woman, then as a northerner, a Muslim, a Hausa and so on. All those things will come to play when I am writing. There is no way, for example, I will write the way a white woman will do; we are simply not the same.

Why are Hausa women writers running away from the tag feminism, even though they treat feminist issues in their works?

I think the simple reason is the negative connotation attached to feminism. That is why Hausa women try to run away from it, because they are afraid people will see them as radicals. That is why many of us reject the term or try to deny any association with it. But I am not saying that I am not a feminist, because there is nothing wrong with being a feminist. It is the interpretation that is sometimes bad. Once you say you are a feminist, they would say that you hate men, you are fighting men, you are only in support of women, but that is not true. Feminism is a relative term. It can be interpreted with varying levels of emphasis. As far as I am concerned, feminism is concerned with the issues of women. It doesn’t mean that you hate men or you are against them. But you are just discussing women’s problems in search of befitting solutions. Even though the central character of my novel, for example, is female, I didn’t portray all the male characters as bad. So feminism is not a movement to paint all men black. So I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a feminist as far as I am concerned.

In a book review you did recently, published in LEADERSHIP, you stated that "men are naturally polygamous". Readers would expect you to expatiate.

When I say man is naturally polygamous, I want us to look at the history of humanity. Throughout history, and weather through formal marriage or not, man would naturally want to have more than one woman. Either he would have one wife and many girlfriends out there or he would have many wives through formal marriage. What I was actually saying is that it is more honest to make it formal.
As a man, once you have one wife and claim that you are monogamous, yet you have several girlfriends out there, then you are not monogamous, you are polygamous. What I am saying is that there is no need for you to pretend. You’d better come out and do it the right way.

Throughout your writing career, what are the things that you consider the main challenges?

The challenges of the writer, especially in this part of the world, when I say this part of the world, I am referring to the northern part of Nigeria, people don’t care about what you do. When you say you are a writer, who cares? Nobody cares. And nobody is interested to read what you write, especially those of us writing in English. People like Balarabe Ramat who happen to write in local language are even luckier, because people read them. But for us that write in English, they don’t really care what we write. It is only the educated few that really take our books and read. It is even more so when you talk about poetry. People don’t simply buy our collection of poems. They would rather buy the novel. Because people don’t enjoy poetry; to them it doesn’t make much difference whether you write or not. There is simply no encouragement. Besides, there is this issue of funding. When you write you will just be keeping them. Like me now, I have volumes of poems, but I have not published them. Sometimes you don’t have the fund to publish them. And no publisher will just come and collect your works to go and publish them. You have to fund them yourself. So these are the main problems we are facing as writers.

Against the background of these challenges, what advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Well, I will just advise them to write. They shouldn’t put into consideration the fact that people would not recognise them or read them. They should not even be bothered that they don’t have the money to publish. So long as they have the talent, they should just go ahead and write. Even if you never get the opportunity to publish, your children may one day pick your write-up and publish it. So, the only thing is for them to continue writing.

Nigerian writers in the Diaspora are well published and celebrated. Is it possible that they work much harder than the writers at home?

I think they just got better opportunities. Writers are recognised there much more than they are recognised here. Once the talent is there, no talent goes unnoticed there. And once you are recognised, you will get published. And you will be advertised and get promoted. And your work will get promoted, too. But here nobody cares. People don’t care about the talent you have, whether you are a writer or not. And this is because people don’t read. So, the talented Nigerians abroad find it much easier to get rewarded for their works. But all the same, there is a bit of improvement in the North. Writers are getting recognised. And literary awards are being created. This will inspire aspiring writers.

These days, there is a tension between writers and the Kano State Censorship Board. How possibly can the Censorship Board succeed in such a huge project of censoring all the literary
output from Kano?

There is nothing wrong with censorship as long as it is done to protect public morality and advance the cause of creativity. Even in the so-called advanced countries, certain texts and images are abhorred because of their explicit nature, talk less of in a conservative society like ours. In recent years, there has been concern with the slide towards over-explicitness by some of the movie-makers and writers in Kano. Hence the intervention by the government and a resistance by the writers, which created the tension you talked about.
The problem with the censorship regime in Kano has to do with the process and style of the censors. They are combative. And they lack the expertise or personnel to do it. I don’t think they can do it. Honestly, I don’t think the government can censor all the books that are published or printed, because some of the books are not even published, they are just printed.
They need to engage the writers, exchange ideas, and do things to help the writers in book production. It would be a disaster to kill the writing industry in the name of censorship. While bad texts and images should be censored, efforts should be made by the government to create a conducive environment for the production and marketing of literary works.

(c) Culled from LEADERSHIP newspaper and published in New Nigerian newspaper of 9th May, 2009.

Former 'Write Stuff' editor loses wife

Former editor of ‘The Write Stuff’, Mallam Ibrahim Sheme, has lost his wife, Binta S. Muhammed. She died on 4th May 2009, after a protracted illness. She died while returning from Egypt, where she was flown for treatment. A lecturer in the English Department of Bayero University, Kano, Binta is a renown writer and literary activist. She is author of several books, including Contour of Life (poetry) and A Clean Break (novel), and co-founder of the Creative Writers Forum, a monthly meeting of authors supported by the British Council, Kano. She was on Study Fellowship to University of Abuja studying for her PhD in English Language.
She has since been buried in Kano, her hometown, according to Muslim rites.
She is survived by three children.
Her family home in Kofar Gadon Kaya, Kano, was a beehive as personalities from all walks of life trooped in to condole the family. Among the dignitaries was His Excellency, the Kano State Governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau; Professor Abubakar Abdulrasheed, former Managing Director of New Nigerian Newspaper Limited and current Dean of Faculty of Arts and Islamic Studies, Bayero University, Kano; and Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Leadership Newspaper, Sam Nda Isaiah.
The dignitaries prayed for the soul of the deceased.
Governor Shekarau prayed, "May her soul rest in peace and may Allah give her family the fortitude to bear the loss."
Her collegues in the literary circle also sent in their condolences.
Dr. Adamu Yusuf, lecturer in the Geography Department of Bayero University, Kano, who announced the death on the writers’ listservs, josana and krizitivity, prayed, "we missed her dearly and pray to God to grant her soul eternal rest."
Barrister Ahmed Maiwada, Abuja-based legal practitioner and legal adviser to Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, prayed that "the departed receive pardon and the coveted prize of paradise."
Patrick Oguejiofor, member of the Abuja chapter of ANA also prayed, "may the soul of the departed find rest with God. And may God grant the husband and those she left behind the fortitude to bear the tragic loss."
Obi Nwanyawu, the US-based writer, recalled his first and only meeting with the deceased. "We were together in a writers’ workshop in Maiduguri in 1995 and we never met again."
He then condoled her husband, Ibrahim Sheme, their children, and their entire family members. "May Allah in His infinite mercy grant her eternal rest."
The chairman of the Kaduna State chapter of ANA, Friday John Abba, described the incidence as a loss to the literary community. He prayed God to have mercy on her soul.

Pictures:

1. Gov. Shekarau (right) in a handshake with Sheme during the condolence visit

2. L - R: Badamasi Burji, Sheme and Isaiah during the condolence visit

(c) Reported by SUMAILA UMAISHA and Published in the New Nigerian of 9th May, 2009.

Ujubuonu: 'Writing will always mirror society' (interview)

Odili Ujubuonu, a Lagos-based writer and Advertising practitioner, who hails from Ukpor, Anambra State, was educated at Christ the King College, Onitsha, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is an award-winning writer. His first novel, Pregnancy of the Gods won the 2006 ANA/Jacaranda Prize for Prose while his second one, Treasure in the Winds won the 2007 ANA/Chevron Prize for Prose. Treasure in the Winds also made the long list of the 2008 edition of the NLNG prize for literature. In this interview with SUMAILA UMAISHA, he speaks about his works and other related issues.

NNW: Let’s have your biography.

Odili Ujubuonu: I was born under the zodiac sign of Gemini, June 13 1964 in Ukpor, Anambra State. The Ukpor peninsula is a quiet hill country that boasts of rocks, valleys, a river and rivulets. Its culture was agrarian, but its system worked perfectly. Its environs were clean, the people were organised. Thieves were known and good men too. Everyone knew the other’s father, history and lies. We lived communally and hardly used the words cousin, uncle or aunt to describe relations. It was more of father, mother, brother or sister. At the age of 8 Lagos became my home. New realities replaced old. Family names were replaced by house numbers. Character was defined by identity. Everyone acted like they were catching a bus to a belikewhitemanland. I grew faster here. My senses were sharpened and I became extremely observant. Coming from my background, I became eager to tell tales.

I grew up in Ajegunle. Its unconventional culture fed my imagination and grew bigger dreams in me. Its arts, its pains and laughter and its lifestyle formed the building blocks of my Freudian id. So my life is a product of that creative kitchen and I am proud of it. I have grown with Lagos through its cycle of good, bad, ugly and now becoming beautiful again. I have at one time or the other left Lagos briefly for Secondary and University levels of education. Other bits of my bio may include a diploma in salesmanship, a degree in Political Science and now an M.A. in the works for a degree in History. I am married with children and I am a member of a very large extended family.

When and how did you start writing?

I began serious writing in Jos, where I did my NYSC in the Public Relations’ Department of the Nigerian Police Force. There I wrote a lot. In the day time, I wrote articles for the op. Ed pages of Standard Newspapers. I also wrote speeches for the Commissioner of Police and briefs for Press men. In the evenings, I kept a diary. Everyday, after work, I recorded all that happened in this fat book. It was one of those big ledger books that were hardbound. I recall I could not fill it even with the exciting life I led serving Nigeria. After my service, I began to nurse the dream of one day filling a book that big with a gripping story. The chance came in June 1993 when the election was cancelled and we were doing nothing except once in a while drifting into protests. I was a foundation member of Concerned Professionals as I attended the first peaceful protest at the Western House, Broad Street with my sister, Oby Ezekwesili. But that was not the exciting part of this for me. It was when I bought a 120 page exercise book and filled it in 3 days. I abandoned the struggle and faced my writing. I wrote from Lagos to Onitsha, Jos, Kano, Katsina travelling and tapping my mind for wine of stories. The produce of those long miles of writing are the novels of today.

What inspired you into writing?

On the primary level I would claim a desire to avert boredom. On the secondary level, I would blame an urge to fulfil a childhood wish. That is to tell stories that are as captivating as those my grandaunt told when we were children and in the village. But on a more sublime level, I would believe, it is an answer to a deep call to right the wrongs of the new culture. I mean a culture that derides everything African and elevates, to hypnotic level, an obsession with everything western. I see it in our languages, in dressing, in the manner we raise our children, how we build and decorate our homes and even our worldview of what development is and ought to be.

How many works have you written?

Two books. Pregnancy of the Gods and Treasure in the Winds.

Your Treasure in the Winds was shortlisted for the NLNG Prize. How does it feel to make the shortlist of such a prestigious Prize? And how do you feel when it eventually won the ANA Chevron Prize on Environmental Issues?

I am a bit sentimental towards Treasure in the Winds. It is a book that wrote itself, called its editors and critics and adjusted itself as we moved along the line. It is a chunk of the same book I started in 1993. The first is Pregnancy of the Gods. The third is the one currently in the works. Coming back to your question, it is a good feeling to know that one is gradually been taken seriously by readers, fellow writers, Prize judges and critics. The first chapter of that book was workshopped in a British Council sponsored Internet project which I attended with a couple of young and brilliant African Writers both at home and in Diaspora. My group made a lot of contributions to the development of the story. It also enjoyed the masterly hands of good critics and editors. I must say, that the joy of its literary success is hardly mine alone. This is one broth that was not spoilt by too many hands. Above all, a greater credit must go to Okey Okpa, of blessed memory, who took the book as a personal project. I am happy he lived to see it all. He believed more than I even do of the environmental depth of the book. Talking about the environmental depth of the book, I would say, that I read a lot on the environment after writing Pregnancy of the Gods. It was not a deliberate plan to influence the canvas of the new one. I was doing this, honestly, to clear my mind of vestiges of the old story. I wanted to fertilise the soil of my mind in order to grow new crops of story. I did not know that these would, in the end, paint the book a subtle colour of green. It was Okey who detected it. I think Obunse did too. Being the editor of the book, Okey insisted and fought the book designer to give the book cover its environmental hue. And when the Chevron officer was commenting on the idea of the Chevron Prize, he mentioned that their idea is to find books with a subtle treatment of the environment. I was shocked that Okey was right even in the beginning. It was also he who put the book for the Prize. I said all these, to let you know how I feel. Great and very fulfilled.

The Book is quite rich in elements of African tradition; tell us about the themes and why your choice of these themes.

I love history. I love it so much so that I have returned to school to study it. That is the central theme of the story. I explore the River Niger and the communities around it before the arrival of the colonial masters in Treasure in the Winds. It also touches such sub-themes as freedom, unity and exile. Freedom from the slavery of man over man and the uncanny bondage the mind suffers in the hands of matter. The River is used as metaphor for the unity of the peoples of Nigeria living together in the different communities treated in the book. The book contests, without polemics, such ethnic notions that the river divides Nigeria. It is, rather, a rallying point for the empires, kingdoms and the republic communities of old. Finally, the challenge of abandoning ship in times of crises is treated in the sub-theme of exile.

Some critics are of the view that for a literary work to qualify as African literature, it must speak about African problems such as political and economic problems. Do you subscribe to this?

I do. I also subscribe to the fact that such a book would fit at best as a brilliant political or economic literature. That is not the kind of book I would be quick to pass as fiction. If I write them then it is the Political Scientist in me that is writing them. When I write fiction, I become a storyteller; I consciously remove such academic mindset that breeds pedagogy, didacticism or grand advocacy. I am a slave of the tale. If I tell the story well enough that lessons are learnt, I would be happier. If people learn a lesson off me without enjoying the story, I would be sadder. I think subtlety is the plumb rule for measuring the social rectitude of my tale.

What is your view on art for art’s sake?

I believe that a writer is, above everything else, an artist. In that regard, art is a vehicle that is used to convey a worldview. Art, therefore, is not a world view on its own. Art can be used to convey aesthetics, language beauty, politics, economy, culture, technology, etc. The choice is the writer’s. You may find me more on the arts divide than on advocacy.

Is committed writing all about protest writing?

It is unfair for us to define one writer as committed and another as not being so. Of course protest writing is committed writing. So is subtlety. In fact, it takes more energy to submerge the sharp spikes of issues in a subtly delivered story. In all they are all committed writing.
In life, we must agree, there is a dark side, a bright side and a grey side. Good writing, like good art, should capture all these. I think writing will always mirror society. What I am against are situations where a mirror chooses what to reflect and what not to. It is not science. It is subjective and limits and kills creativity.

You seem to prefer writing novels to other genres; why?

I believe that is where my strength lies. I came into the scene too late. It may be unwise to experiment. So, for now, it is better to stick to what I know best. I write poems but they are very private to me. They are not created. They spring from the deep well of my soul. As a result, my poems are personal, natural and irreverent of any literary laws or forms. I watch drama and that is just good enough for me.

Above all, the discipline of writing prose is spellbinding. In a novel, you encounter the mystic hands of God. The power to do and undo sometimes confers on us that god element. It is almost aphrodisiac like all other forms of power. In some cases, the story glides smoothly writing itself while the writer simply follows. It is so much fun writing a novel where the characters are the friends of the author. I doubt if I would have as much fun writing a book of poetry than I have doing the novel.

How would you describe the Nigerian Literary scene?

It is rich and vibrant. We are blessed to have the crop of writers who are writing now. These are good middle class people engaging the challenges of everyday life in their works. From the works of my friends - Kaine Agary, Jude Dibia, Tony Kan and El Nukoya and lately, Adunni Abimbola Adelakun - you would witness strong voices crying in the wilderness. Some of us might have bloomed late but we are happy that we found our voices in this time, clan and clime.

What is the future of Nigerian Literature and your place in it?

The future would be as bright as our midnight candles can burn. What I mean is that we must continue to work hard and turn our challenges to opportunities. We need the publishing firms to move with us at the same speed. My place, like the future of the scene, is dependent on how hard I work. It is easy to become complacent after a few books but my fervent hope is that I would overcome that devil and write my way into the future with a smile.

(c) Interviewed by SUMAILA UMAISHA and published in the 16/5/09 edition of New Nigerian newspapers.