South African writers address new challenges

Niq Mhlongo is a South Africa writer born in Soweto. His first novel titled Dog Eat Dog, which turned out very successful, is an evocative account based on his experience as a young South African of the post-apartheid generation. Based on the work, the New York Times described him as “one of the most high-spirited and irreverent new voices of South Africa’s post-apartheid literary scene.” His second novel, After Tears, is also a great success.
Niq was one of the facilitators at the creative writing workshop organised by Farafina Trust in Lagos. In this interview with SUMAILA UMAISHA, he sheds light on his works and the contemporary South African writings.

NNW: What’s your novel, Dog Eat Dog, all about?
Niq Mhlongo: As the title suggests, it is survival of the fittest. It is mainly set in 1994, the political landmark of South Africa, in a sense that, that was when apartheid was officially eradicated and we were ushered into a new democracy under Mandela. After apartheid was dismantled, South Africans faced new challenges, especially the youths. The challenges are around issues like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, AIDS scourge and the new order of the day. So, in the book we see all these through the eyes of a young man who now has the opportunity to go to a good university which was normally all-white. In 1994, if one came from a not so good public school there was a kind of unpreparedness, because it is something that happened suddenly without the preparation by the disadvantaged people like him. For instance, the first challenge was that the lecturer is a white person; you try hard to understand him. You fail not because you are not good, but because the language barrier is there.
It also talks about issues like new hope where people think things would come easy. They think education will be free and so on, because when politicians were busy campaigning they promised all these just to entice people to vote for them. So when he went there he thought I’m going for a free education, only to find out that it is not like that.
It is also about transition. The main character lived in a slum and now he goes to Johannesburg, a new environment altogether, a place he was always denied to go. During the apartheid era the country was designated as a white area, black area, coloured area and Indian area. Johannesburg was a white area. So the character’s transition from the black area to the white area was not an easy one. It is a challenge because you have to cope with a new environment.
The end of the book is all about how the character manages out of all the circumstances.
Is your second novel, After Tears, on the same subject?
It is on the same subject but I used different plot. In a nutshell, After Tears simply means a kind of celebration of life after the burial of someone. It is a way of trying to forget the death. So, literally, the issues discussed centre on life after apartheid. After the tears of apartheid, what are the youths of South Africa doing? They are still unemployed, there is too much corruption going on. So all these elements are very much involved in the book.
Is this the kind of subject-matter the contemporary South African writers are writing on?
Not all of them. Some write love stories. But the themes are interrelated; you will find the rich and the poor, the white and the black politicians in the stories in a way they were not portrayed before. There are a lot of writings based on African culture.
Why are the contemporary South African writers not writing on apartheid; is it that the theme has been exhausted or it is no longer relevant?
I think apartheid has been over-written. We now write about post-apartheid issues. But it does not mean that we don’t have to reflect. Even in my own writing, when I say a person goes to university in post-1994 and he is not prepared, in a nutshell, I’m still referring to apartheid but not in a direct manner. Yes, we can say we do not write about apartheid now like we write about the new challenges, because we got new challenges, such as the ones I mentioned earlier, and xenophobia. Even the class division is still there.
What kind of subject-matters do you think South African writers would be writing about in the next twenty years or so?
[Laughs] It’s a tricky question. It is quite a difficult thing to postulate, but I’m imagining that it will follow the same pattern with other African countries that became independent. It is usually from independence to dictatorship. So we might experience such thing in future, we can’t tell. We may have writings on that. We may also have a multi-racial kind of writing. I’m just hoping that people will be writing in ways that black and white are no longer separated. There are so many possibilities.

(c) Published in the New Nigerian Newspapers of 19/6/2010

Those who don’t read fiction don’t write well

BINYAVANGA WAINAINA, a Kenyan writer and winner of the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, who is currently a Bard Fellow and Director of the Chinua Achebe Centre for African Literature and Languages at Bard College, was one of the resource persons at the recent Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop in Lagos. The founding editor of Kwani?, a literary magazine that has become an important source of new writing from Africa, speaks with SUMAILA UMAISHA on what creative writing is all about.

NNW: What are the factors that make a good creative writing?
Binyavanga Wainaina: Oh, they are many; we can talk for hours about them. But we will I will just say that a good fiction writer aims to create a world, not to write a story. And that world operates by its own rules that are consistent, affecting, entertaining and thoughtful in the lines. Fiction is very little about theme; only professors of literature talk about themes. People don’t read fiction for themes, they read fiction to encounter characters and to enter and be involved with and belong to the world that has been created. And I think the practice of writing fiction has been challenged in many African countries because it’s been dominated too much by professors wanting to say ‘focus on the theme’.
Would you say this principle have you mentioned was responsible for your winning the Caine prize?
It was very helpful because it gave a platform in a sense of being able to enter the market, sell books and so on. But I had been working on my craft before the prize. And I read a lot. And the point was just to turn that reading into being able to break down what great fiction writers were doing with their own craft and learn how they make their sentences, and learn how to see through the eyes of a craftsman who makes texts. That’s what I’ve been doing, what’s what I will always do. Ninety percent of the real work of fiction is always examining other people make their own.
Is imparting this principle part of your work at the Achebe Centre?
Our job at the Chinua Achebe Centre for artists and writers is simple. We love academics but we don’t want academics there; it is not for them, it is for writers and artists. So our job is to create projects and opportunities for writers to produce. And we are always looking for exciting ones. We are interested in new works, we are interested in encouraging new works, encouraging young writers. We are interested in putting established young writers in situations that are new and having them produce new things.
You’ve also won the Kenya Publishers Association prize. Comparing this to Caine prize, which would you say uplifts you more?
[A long pause] I see prizes to be something very useful about the public in a sense that the Caine prize put you on international media and allows your name to resonate to publishers and so on and allows your work to move forward. The Kenya Publishers Association prize was wonderful because it came from my own country. It is wonderful because I have been critical of Kenya publishers and I felt grateful that they took the criticism to heart and saw value in what I was doing. But it is not the prizes, I’m pleased with the work, I’m most proud of the stories I’ve written, I’m just happy reading and writing. And if in the bid you drop a prize, it is fine, you know.
You were nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, an award given to people for their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world, but you rejected it in spite of the fact you’ve just stated. And you accepted Caine prize...
The Caine prize is for writers. Caine prize will not tell me not to criticise them, because it is a prize for fiction, they understand what fiction is. So even if I feel uncomfortable being an African writer going to the House of Lords to win a prize, it is still a prize for fiction. It means after going to the House of Lords for dinner I satirise the House, the prize will not have any problem. But it is different when you go and get prizes from politicians who are worth millions of dollars, who say they want to rule the world. That is no territory for a writer like me. It is not. Because you are suppose to be there behind them, making their life very difficult.
So your fear is that if you receive the award you would be dancing to their tune?
Yes. If Obasanjo tells you, you are the hero of the nation, how are you going to criticise him later? There are things you must keep independent from, because such prizes are ways of telling you to come and join the club. I don’t belong to that club. I belong to the club of people, just people. And I don’t distinguish between any members of the club.
You cried when you won the Caine prize.
Yeah! [laughs] It is ten thousand dollars! I had no money... are you joking!
What would you say that prize has done to you as a writer?
It just gave me legitimacy. Before I won it, I couldn’t think of earning as much as I could, I couldn’t think of having an agent. But I think the most important thing it did actually is that it gives me room in Kenya. Until I won the Caine prize nobody in Kenya was interested in the fact that I wrote fiction, except my friends. Nobody cared. Of course, being an ex-colonial country, when you win something from abroad they regard you more. Now they call me Mr. Binyavanga. But I was the same person before, writing the same thing. It is a shame on our country to get foreign legitimacy before one’s work could be appreciated. I would never been able to found Kwani? if I hadn’t won the Caine prize because I would not be taken serious in Kenya.
Three weeks before I was shortlisted for the prize, I went to a publisher and tried to get an appointment with an editor there but she refused to meet me. I travelled three hours to see her and then I called her and she said ‘I’m busy’. So imagine trying to start something in a country that does that. Four weeks later, people were calling and saying, ‘can we give you money to start a magazine?’ That’s how it works. Maybe it is neo-colonialism I don’t know. But that’s how it works. So the prize helped a lot.
Talking about Kwani?; what is the aim of founding it?
There is a group of us; we had a lot of energy and enthusiasm, we wanted to push things along. There was a lot of energy. There was an election, the music scene was exciting, and there was a feeling of creativity. And that is where that energy came from.
There is this thing I read about you collecting food recipes; I can’t imagine you in a kitchen! What has that got to do with a writer?
I love cooking very much. There is a mistake in the information though, because I read about me having collected over 13,000 recipes. I have never done that. It was a mistake and I can’t stop it because it is already on the internet. I’ve collected about a thousand. I used to write about African food for South African newspapers. So I got known for doing that.
Finally, what’s your advice to young writers?
Read, read at lunch time, read in the morning, read fiction. Don’t read theories about fiction, read fiction. You will be a better writer the more fiction you read. Those who don’t read fiction don’t write well. You can measure it mathematically. Read without discrimination. Read the books you think you hate, read the books that are too difficult. When you master the books you thought were too difficult, it means you’ve grown.

(c)Published in the New Nigerian Newspapers of 12/6/2008

My new book!

My collection of short stories has just been released.

From the back of the book:

THE BOOK

Hoodlums is a collection of short stories reflecting the Nigerian situation, especially the physical and psychological violence perpetrated in the name of religion, politics, culture and the quest for wealth. Amidst the bloodshed, injustice and jungle justice, there is also smouldering romance and spiritual undertone as love struggles for survival.

THE AUTHOR

Sumaila Isah Umaisha has, in the course of his journalism career since 1993, bagged several awards, such as the Literary Journalist of the Year Award by the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, which he won twice (2004 and 2007) as the literary editor of New Nigerian Newspapers.
His literary works have been published in many journals, anthologies and websites, including his blog: http://www.everuthinliterature.blogspot.com/.
The former national publicity secretary of ANA and chairman of the Kaduna State chapter holds Higher National Diploma in Journalism and Post-graduate Diploma in Public Administration.


Highlights from some of the stories

Militants

The confused flow of human traffic was so charged with the fear of death that it had no regard for little kids. Only those who were in company of adults had the privilege of being dragged roughly along or clasped in quaking arms. The unlucky ones, who happened to be on their own, like Tene, had to manage along at the risk of being trampled upon by the moving forest of adult feet…

The Last Hiding Place

She burst into the library. He was not there. She rushed to the toilet, the lounge, the kitchen and the other rooms, but each yawned at her with an air of nonchalance… Her fear rose with every heartbeat. Fear of the night and the deadly possibilities. Fear of what might happen to her in this lonely place that was miles away from human habitation…

The King Himself

“Then sit down,” he cut me short. “You can sit on any of the chairs, except one. That one over there… It belongs to the King himself.”
I looked around but I couldn’t see any chair. Of course, I didn’t expect to see any. I expected to see scraps of bicycles, motorcycles and the like. And those were all I saw - hollow things from the anonymous folds of the past…

The Forbidden Path

The path was overgrown; all sorts of plants formed sealed lips over the way. Trees and creepers made it impossible for her to see beyond her next few steps. And each step seemed to take her closer to some void where the silent echoes of the spills of life converged. Yet, she plodded on, gasping like a fish out of water…

Hoodlums

The urgent need to ascertain her safety overshadowed the thought of his own impending death. He flipped the phone open. But as he began to dial, the Inspector snatched it from his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Just trying to call my...”
“Call your what? You think you are on a picnic?” He flung the phone away.
The clatter of the phone on the road sounded to Ben like a metal curtain being drawn between him and Mairo. He got down on his knees and began to pray - something he had not done in a very long time…