Adelakun Adunni Abimbola, winner of the 2010 edition of the Literary Journalist of the Year, awarded by the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, with B.A and M.A from the Department of Communication and Language Arts. Though she is on the Politics Desk of Punch Newspaper and holds a regular opinion column in which she comments on topical issues, she is more inclined to the literary world as testified by the literary journalism award and her well acclaimed novels, Under the Brown Rusted Roofs and The Sun Will Shine on Everything You Do. Bimbola is a multi-talented person; prior to working in the print media, she has been a teacher, a librarian and worked in an advertising agency as intern account manager. In this interview with SUMAILA UMAISHA, she speaks about her writings and other related issues.
Let’s have your brief biography.
Adelakun Adunni Abimbola: I was born in Ibadan. I grew up in the city and had all my formal education in the place. After secondary school, I took up a job as a primary school teacher and later as a librarian. Then I went to the University of Ibadan to study Communication and Language Art. I didn’t quit my job. I continued till I graduated. Afterwards, I took up a teaching job, worked briefly as a brand manager in an advertising firm and then taught again, did a bit research assistant and then got a job as a journalist. I was born in a large nuclear/polygamous family - larger than the normal size but not large enough to raise eyebrows. I am the second child and second daughter. My parents were both teachers even though one is deceased and the other is retired. I live in Lagos now but I have a strong connection to my roots in Ibadan. Even though I work as a journalist, that word does not accurately describe me. I love writing and I want to be known as a writer; a very good one. That is all I strive to be.
When and how did you start writing?
I think writing started for me when I started scribbling nonsense on my school notes to stave off boredom. I read a lot as a child and I must say I owe a lot to the books that I read. Books have had a tremendous influence on me and for a long time, I could not differentiate between what I read and what is true. I love books that much and I believe in them so much. Reading helps me write.Well, my first finished full length novel was concluded when I was 16 and had just left secondary school and I had a lot of time on my hands and I didn’t have a boyfriend. It was quite easy too because I was trying to get into the university and I was not yet admitted so I bought ‘Big Note’ and did everything by hand. The book was titled ‘The Sand Hour Glass’ and it is a religious novel. I wrote it then because I had this idea of writing a Christian book that is not too preachy and highly entertaining! Unfortunately, it cannot be published because it is more than 10 years since I wrote it and my religious views are now opposite to what I used to believe when I wrote that book. I wrote five others or so of the same genre before I got to the university and since then I’ve not written much religious stuff for the same reason. When I got to the university, I stopped writing because I was busy with work. Also, my religious views changed after graduation and since then I have not touched those pieces. They are rotting away somewhere and I hope one day I will pick them up and extract ideas from them.
What motivated you to write the novel, Under the Brown Rusted Roofs?
It was in my final year and Professor Femi was giving a tripartite Faculty Lecture titled ‘The city as Muse: Ibadan and the Efflorescence of Literature.” He spoke on how Ibadan gave birth to literature and how Ibadan had declined over the years. He said Ibadan people don’t even have a writer and nobody was setting a novel in the city. He spoke of great writers that had passed through Ibadan and how the city had fallen. I thought he was right and for a proud Ibadan girl like me, I was not just pricked, I said I would do something about it. I made up my mind I was going to write a book about Ibadan one day. I was to redeem the image of Ibadan. I didn’t start with Under the Brown Rusted Roofs in mind. I just wanted to write a book. Again, I was working in an advertising agency and I had a computer to myself. So I started playing around on the computer and from time to time, would pen words. It started growing and before I knew it, it was 30 pages or so! So, I felt good enough to continue. When I went to Abia State to serve, I continued. Then I found that what I was writing was without cultural character and I thought of what to do. It occurred to me that since I knew about the cultural character of Ibadan, why didn’t I use that? That was how I found the story. That kind of helped shaped my thoughts. Once I got the title, every other thing fell into place.
You have a B.A and M.A in Communication and Language Arts. Would you say this educational qualification is instrumental to your literary endeavour?
One way or the other, it sure helped. I took Creative Writing courses and wrote a novel for my BA (which might never be published either!). What I can attribute the greatest help to is my teacher and mentor, Dr. Hyginus Ekwuazi. He taught me to read and write. If not for him, I would not have actively pursued it as I did. I always thought writing was a special thing done by people with two heads until he told me I could do it.
You were a teacher, a librarian, and now a journalist; in what way have these professions contributed to your world view vis-a-vis your writing career?
I started teaching at 16 so let me say it made me grow rather too fast. It matured me and gave me a sphere of experience I would not have acquired if I had not gone through those experiences. I became a librarian in a major secondary school at 18 and mingled with older people. In fact, let me confess that their worldview and experience of agboole and their life under the brown rusted roofs helped me a lot. I worked side by side with local/traditional folks and I learnt an awful lot. It really influenced my writings. I learnt about a lot of adult issues very quickly. Now that I am a journalist, frankly, it is another experience altogether. Writing as a journalist is different from creative writing. One has borders, the other doesn’t. Creative writing gives me a kind of freedom to be ‘god’. I create characters and I kill them. As a journalist, I am stuck with facts. However, the discipline of journalistic writing has been invaluable.
Protest writing on themes like corruption, political crises are said to have been over flogged. What’s your view on this?
It is not the themes that are over flogged. It is how it is written that is over flogged. Frankly, when I, or anyone for that matter, pick up a book, what we want is to be entertained. We want to laugh; we want our adrenalin to rise; we want suspense; we want a different world view; we want our beliefs challenged and not just somebody pushing down familiar issues down our throat in the same old manner since The Man of The People. I hate it when a book is full of lessons or sermons of issues that I can read in newspapers. We must recognize that there are no new stories anywhere. All stories in the world have been told in one way or the other. What we want is freshness and not just a rehash of the same old stuff. People should not be so fixated about their writings changing the world. They should focus on entertaining and good writing and let the society find its way. People are not daft. If they can find more meaning in the Holy Books more than the writers intended, then they can find political philosophy in writing full of sex [laughs].
Most African women writers tend to write from the feminist perspective. Why?
I am tempted to say they want to be like white women but it is not so simple. Yes, some try too hard to be like western women when they write about feministic issues without being objective or without trying to probe issues within their own cultural world view. I believe any woman who can read and write and can assert herself is a feminist already [laughs] but people should not get fanatical without a strong purpose. It’s not just enough to go about shouting ‘I’m a woman!’ for the fun of it. Then, the society we live in makes you a feminist, naturally. It is both tougher and challenging to be a woman because of the many challenges involved. We still live in a male dominated society but women are making great strides. They should keep up with it and pour all their energies in it rather than pitching themselves against the men.
(c) Interviewed by Sumaila Umaisha and published in the 20th March, 2011 edition of WritersVillage, a literary column in New Nigerian newspaper.
