Author of ‘The Revolution Generation’, Abimbola Alaba thinks writing is just like sculpting. ‘There must be a mound of something—clay or wax or stone—to carve and chisel into a semblance of art.’
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
I was fascinated by magic and fantasy, and devoured everything by Enid Blyton whose books held the doors of literature wide open for me to run through. I remember walking up to the librarian in my first year of secondary school and handing over a list of books I felt the library’s collection was sorely missing.
I complained to a friend, Tope Oladimeji, when I’d run out of Blytons to read and he lent me his copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as a stopgap. I went through it in one evening, and returned a bonafide reader. JK Rowling’s books eventually had such an effect that my father nicknamed me Harry Bim.
The first work of African Literature that arrested me was Camara Laye’s The African Child. I soon discovered An African Night’s Entertainment by Cyprian Ekwensi and delved further into literary African fiction—Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Kola Onadipe’s Koku Baboni stand out. I am and was fascinated by mythologies and the Tales of Troy and Greece, and Daniel O Fagunwa’s Ògbójú Ọdẹ nínú Igbó Irúnmọlẹ̀ were firm favourites.
What book from your childhood would you pass on to someone younger?
Cyprian Ekwensi’s An African Night’s Entertainment.
If you could rewrite a classic book/text, which would it be and why?
It would have to be A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, simply because I get writer’s envy every time I read it and wished my name was on the cover of that book in the space where the author’s name goes! I know it isn’t thought of as a classic, but it should be.
The first work of African Literature that arrested me was Camara Laye’s The African Child. I soon discovered An African Night’s Entertainment by Cyprian Ekwensi and delved further into literary African fiction…
What’s the last book that changed your mind about something?
Perhaps it didn’t quite change my mind, but Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil made me think about religious faith and how it suffuses every aspect of a believer’s life, such that to challenge that faith would be to pull the ground on which they stand out from underfoot.
Nietzche seemed to suggest that conviction is not necessary for belief to take hold, that humans would choose the stability of a well-established notion over the truth.
What’s the last book/text you disagreed with, and why?
The answer swam quickly into my consciousness: Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.
Although Rand’s didactism on capitalism and her vivid descriptions mark her as an incredible writer (hence her roaring success), I—a self-acclaimed socialist—couldn’t get past the core philosophy of The Fountainhead, objectivism—that unrestrained self-interest is good and selflessness is destructive.
Rand believed that this was the ultimate expression of human nature, the guiding principle by which one ought to live one’s life. I liked Rand’s writing, but I’m not sure I like Rand.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil made me think about religious faith and how it suffuses every aspect of a believer’s life, such that to challenge that faith would be to pull the ground on which they stand out from underfoot.
What’s a common misconception about African development or African economies?
The idea that Africa is completely backdropped by a savannah full of giraffes, that we all live in mud houses, have no idea what technology is, and are all irredeemably corrupt.
Scratch that. What’s a common misconception about creative writing?
From anecdotal evidence, the misconceptions I’ve encountered often stem from the wrong assumption that writing, especially fiction writing, is easy.
The idea is that writers sit at a desk making stuff up all day long, and it doesn’t account for the relentless research going on behind the scenes that anchor the body of work and make it believable.
There is also a notion that one isn’t a writer until they’ve been published by a big-name publisher, and their book sits proudly on a shelf in a major bookstore. Anyone who writes is a writer.
And a misconception about contemporary African writers?
I think it would be that African writers can only write relentless tales of misery, war, and a chronic malaise of people on the continent. In a satirical 2005 essay that discussed common African stereotypes in writing, the late Binyavanga Wainaina wrote, ‘among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West.’
Contemporary African writing is teeming with incredibly diverse literary fiction written by Africans for Africans, and the success these books enjoy in the West is a simple testament to incredible writing.
What three books should everyone be reading at this moment?
Maryse Conde’s Segu, as well as Jennifer Makumbi’s Kintu and The First Woman.
As one who aspires to write historical African fiction, I cannot think of three better books that take me deep into African origins. Both authors shine a light on the obscurities of African history.
There is also a notion that one isn’t a writer until they’ve been published by a big-name publisher, and their book sits proudly on a shelf in a major bookstore. Anyone who writes is a writer.
What’s your writing process: edit as you write or write a draft first, then edit?
I am a huge proponent of splurging onto a page in a word vomit sort of way until my insides are empty. I would put the assortment of words away, returning later to the initial outpouring. And then the pruning begins: I’d find a better word, delete an entire paragraph, move sentences around, add a comma here, an ellipsis there.
True inspiration often comes at this stage, when there is already a structure to work with, and I can faintly see outlines of the pictures I’m trying to paint. Just like a colouring book, I find the huge gaps in my text that need to be filled, until whatever I have written becomes somewhat readable. It is a messy process!
I always think of writing as sculpting. There must be a mound of something—clay or wax or stone—to carve and chisel into a semblance of art. Michaelangelo’s David began as something far from what the world still admires today, but it couldn’t have been made quickly out of nothing regardless of its creator’s skill. I think this is the truth of any artistic endeavour. For me, writing is rewriting.
What was your process for writing ‘The Revolution Generation’?
Anger that had nowhere to go was the fuel that burned inside me, its by-products becoming the words that made up ‘The Revolution Generation’, my essay on the 2020 #EndSARS protests.
That anger allowed me to sustain the effort required to write the essay, and was necessary to ensure the collection of sentences it consisted of were a correct account of events and a raw and honest personal reflection.
I reached out to witnesses who had first-hand experience of events via social media and wrote a diary of events as a framework for the essay, and to ensure the chronology was correct and easy for a reader who had no knowledge of the protests to follow. I began to flesh it out after this, introducing useful context and drawing parallels to other displays of activism. However, the real secret of writing the essay was that I sat at a desk and wrote.
What do you think is the function of writing about events like #EndSARS?
Art must reflect the times and the duty of writers is to record history. Writing can be a powerful expression of activism.
Toni Morrison once said that doing language ‘may be the measure of our lives.’ That statement speaks to the capacity of writing to rouse people, raise leaders and reverberate through time.
I am a huge proponent of splurging onto a page in a word vomit sort of way until my insides are empty.
And what is more important, then, the story or how it is written?
What is better? A well-told lie or a haphazard truth? It’s actually a tough question!
The story is the paramount of the two, however it is written. The trouble is that it is often the quality writing that gives credence to a story or a recorded event. Writing it badly might strip the story of its veracity.
What’s the most meaningful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
That in writing fiction, one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. In contrast to, say journalism, where one false fact prejudices everything else that is written. The other vital piece of advice was write!
To sit at a desk and write and write and get frustrated and get better by patiently writing through the rubbish to get to the good stuff. That out of a thousand words, a single phrase might be all that’s worth keeping and that this was okay. I was told that diamonds are valuable because you have to go through so much dirt to reach them.
In a workshop at The Writer’s Room, a Nigerian screenwriter, Nicole Asinugo, as a daily exercise recommended randomly selecting an item and writing about it without conscious thought as a way of opening up the mind—a sort of unblocking mechanism, even if the work produced will end up in the (recycle) bin.
Who is an author you wish you had discovered earlier?
Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Chester Himes.
Reading their books take my body back to the experience of okada rides through Lagos—Daredevil motorcyclists riding urgently, veering through the tiniest of gaps, chancing potholes, relegating the lives they carry to the integrity of their two rubber tyres.
And just when I think we’re about to crash, the nonchalant driver restores the motorcycle to its height with the calmness of a dove, leaving me exhaling with relief and exhilaration, but with something inside me wanting to do it again.
It is the same way I travel through their word maps. Both writers knew how to take readers on journeys and however unlikely the twists and turns, however impassable the road ahead might seem, my trust in them is absolute, knowing they have the skill to deliver me safely to an ending that is often a better destination than the one I’d hoped to reach.
…in writing fiction, one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work.
You’re currently studying for an MSc in Creative Writing at Cambridge. What’s something simple that still surprises you about studying creative writing?
That everybody has impostor’s syndrome—even the published professor teaching you (a published author). Also that it is possible to learn how to write but not how to be a writer. One is a skill, the other is art.
And what’s one book everyone should read before leaving university?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Lesley Nneka Arimah’s What it Means when a Man Falls from the Sky. They are all the ‘how-to-write’ books you’ll ever need!
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
I’ve recently been very interested in family stories, and how relationships within this context can veer off in wild and unimaginable directions. Being from a very large one, I am always amazed by some of the narratives that have emerged from my own family tree.
The script of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a play by Tennessee Williams is an excellent play that focuses on a dysfunctional family and one I thoroughly recommend.
What can we expect you to write about next?
I’m currently trying my hand at non-fiction and writing the account that follows a woman’s journey from Bodija, a market town in southwest Nigeria as she chases a Lagos dream that hasn’t quite turned out as she’d hoped.
It is possible to learn how to write but not how to be a writer. One is a skill, the other is art.
Question from Chinonye Otuonye: Given how often we’re online now, how important (if at all) do you think physically putting pen to paper is for the art of writing?
Although it has become less necessary, especially if voice recording apps are thrown into the mix, there is something about pen and paper that pulls a writer into their own writing.
Personally, there is a kind of imprinting on the mind that comes when I write things down physically – the act seems to connect me emotionally to whatever I have written. I must say I rely on computers to churn out large blocks of text and only really write on paper in the mornings right after waking, when my head is full of dreams and ideas that would disappear if I fail to act.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft.
What book have you refused to read, and why?⎈
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