Writer and Africa winner of the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Innocent Chizaram Ilo, is a perfectionist. ‘I can rewrite a paragraph so many times before finally deciding that it does not even belong to a piece.’
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
I read everything growing up. From Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, Chike and the River, A Man of the People); Buchi Emecheta (The Joys of Motherhood), Chukwuemeka Ike (The Bottled Leopard, Sunset At Dawn), Cyprian Ekwensi (The Drummer Boy, An African Night’s Entertainment, Jaguar Nana’s Daughter), Treasure Island, Dizzy Angel, Sugar Girl, Eze Goes To School, Without A Silver Spoon, The Bina Series, Stories My Mother Told Me, Twilight of the Tortoise, The Village School, The Village Headmaster, to The Students’ Companion, Mills and Boon, Silhouette, and the Harlequin series, and Awake issues (especially the science sections). I grew up in a house pretty filled with books. My parents are teachers (though my father resigned before I was born). So, I read everything I could find in the house. I also had this nasty habit of not arranging the shelves and book piles when I was done scouting for books. My mother didn’t like that bit of my reading because she would have to do the arranging.
Which book from your childhood would you pass on to someone younger and why?
This is a tough one. There are so many choices but the book from my childhood that I would pass on to someone younger is probably Cyprian Ekwensi’s An African Night’s Entertainment. The novel was the first adventure story I read, and it helped me dream and imagine new worlds. Children need books to spur them to dream and imagine beyond their realities.
If you could rewrite a classic book/text, which would it be and why?
I want to write an entire book based on Unoka, Okonkwo’s father in Things Fall Apart. It would be more of a narrative addition than a rewrite of Chinua Achebe’s novel. I’m fascinated with Unoka. He’s nothing like any male character written in that era with his flute and his witty jokes to escape gbese. I want to know what it would mean to grow up while being perceived as effeminate in precolonial Igbo.
There are so many choices but the book from my childhood that I would pass on to someone younger is probably Cyprian Ekwensi’s An African Night’s Entertainment.
What is the last book you disagreed with, and why?
I argued about the accessibility of language in fiction with a friend after reading The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. Serpell is sort of a ‘dark horse’ in African literature. So many of my peers still think that the language of her work is inaccessible. It’s either ‘She’s such a difficult read!’ they say, or ‘Why must she make her work so difficult?’ As an undergraduate, I and other students in a small writing group debated about Serpell’s Caine Prize-winning short story, ‘The Sack’. The debate centred around whether ‘The Sack’ is a bad story because so many people didn’t get it. Now that I think of it, it is quite ridiculous of us to use so many people getting it as a standard for good fiction. Circling back to this year, after reading The Old Drift, I also had a similar debate with my friend. This time, I argued in favour of The Old Drift, for how accessibility can be relative. My friend and I did not agree.
What’s a book or text you read recently that changed your mind about something?
Definitely ‘The Crane Wife’ by CJ Hauser in The Paris Review. It really changed the way I viewed personal relationships.
Recommend, bury or unwrite a book. You’d:
Recommend— Anything by Helen Oyeyemi and Lesley Nneka Arimah (because we all need to be transported from our drab realities; and imagine doing that with these two as your pilots?).
Bury— The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (A book that should have stayed in the drafts).
Unwrite— Saint Paul’s epistles because of the misogyny and arrogating of patriarchy as ‘the standard’.
What’s a common misconception people have about contemporary Nigerian fiction?
That it is not innovative. Same old, same old. Which is funny because most people with this misconception do not even read much of contemporary Nigerian fiction. If they did, they’d see how it is evolving, taking on bolder themes, and experimenting with style. For instance, Osahon Ize-Iyamu’s ‘For What Are Delusions If Not Dreams’ and Chikaodili Emelumadu’s ‘What to do when your child brings home a Mami Wata’ experiment with writing fiction in a research paper format. Ope Adedeji’s ‘The Caller’ and Olakunle Ologunro’s ‘Our Girl, Bimpe’ take on a fresher lens using social media, the internet and technology to explore sexual harassment and sexual abuse.
There is also this lovely thing younger Nigerian writers are doing with fiction where nothing gives away the gender of a character until the middle or the end of a work. Most times, the reader unconsciously assumes the gender of said character. Nine out of ten times, the reader guesses wrong. My favourite example of this is ‘Tell Me Something Happy’ by Mòje Ikpeme (published on Lolwe). The list is inexhaustible.
Who are three young contemporary Nigerian writers we should all be reading? (And why?)
Definitely Chukwuebuka Ibeh, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, and Frances Ogamba. There is a certain kind of beauty to Chukwuebuka’s prose; ordinary stories told in extraordinary ways. Osahon is probably the best sci-fi writer of our generation. His writing style combines the unlikeliest of things: maths and poetry. Frances’s works are deceptively simple. But at the end of the day, the stories effortlessly weave complex and overlaying narratives.
Namwali Serpell is sort of a ‘dark horse’ in African literature. So many of my peers still think that the language of her work is inaccessible.
What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
I usually resist the urge to be a perfectionist when it comes to my craft, but I’ve failed at this multiple times. I can rewrite a paragraph so many times before finally deciding that it does not even belong to a piece. However, some stories are kind to me and just flow until I get to the end. I don’t know how to write without my very small smartphone. It makes the entire process fun for me. Laptops and pen-and-paper make me look so serious. I don’t want to.
What was your process for writing ‘When a Woman Renounces Motherhood’?
Tedious. Long. Frustrating. I had been writing and rewriting ‘When a Woman Renounces Motherhood’ since 2017. I experimented with several POVs. I read it aloud to myself. I sent it out to trusted friends who assured me that it’s good. Then, it grew from flash fiction to a full short story. I considered giving up on it so many times but there was something that kept pulling me back to that story. Maybe it’s because it’s a story that I have always wanted to write. ‘When a Woman Renounces Motherhood’ is also a bit off brand for me. I had just stopped writing realism so rediscovering it was difficult.
What’s more important: the story or how you write it?
It’s difficult to separate these two things. For me, the story informs and guides how I am going to tell it.
*Whispers* This is me basically saying that I think of the story first.
I usually resist the urge to be a perfectionist when it comes to my craft, but I’ve failed at this multiple times.
Is good writing a talent (something innate) or a skill (something we learn)?
Both. In writing, talent and skill work hand-in-hand. Some of us are pre-installed with storytelling abilities which may give us an edge over others in writing. However, like every skill, writing can be learnt, honed, and perfected.
What is the most meaningful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
Give yourself room to suck. Allow yourself to be bad. It is only in being bad at writing that we can be better. We learn, we unlearn, we question, we interrogate, we rewrite, we repeat. A slow and sometimes soul-crushing process.
Who is an author you wish you had discovered earlier?
Toni Morrison. She is undoubtedly the greatest writer of all time. Nobody has rivalled Toni in creating complex and bizarre characters who are, in her own words, as large as life.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
I’ve been reading so many pieces about COVID-19 that explore privilege, race and social class, and how these factors affect the way people navigate the global pandemic. Most remarkable, so far, has been Arundhati Roy’s piece in the Financial Times.
Give yourself room to suck. Allow yourself to be bad. It is only in being bad at writing that we can be better.
What are you currently working on?
A collection of short stories set in a magical town called Selemku, and, if I get bullied enough by Keletso Mopai, a novel.
Question from Muzz Muhammad: What book makes you think of a song, or vice-versa?
The Famished Road by Ben Okri makes me think of River Lea by Adele.
Sinnerman by Nina Simone makes me think of The Book of Revelations.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft
In writing fiction, do you talk to your characters or are you normal?⎈
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