Author of ‘Who’s Afraid of Nigerian Literature?: The Resilience of Nigerian Writing’, Kéchi Nne Nomu, has been reading science writings and creative nonfiction lately: ‘I think the world of science and the literary world need to meet more often. I like books or texts where that interaction is happening.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
Books were very present in our house and my mother taught literature for years. My mother was a Pa Amata theatre troupe girl. My childhood entailed listening in on conversations about Wole Soyinka, Okot p’Bitek, Ama Ata Aidoo, Thomas Hardy, Christopher Okigbo, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot and Buchi Emecheta. I also got to watch productions of The Trials of Brother Jero, saying a Brother Jero line to mimic the actors, ‘I am a prophet. A prophet by birth and by inclination,’ around and about. I had access to a good school library and read everything: To Sir, With Love by E. R. Braithwaite, Abimbolu by Jean Jacoby, God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène, The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon, as well as books by Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa. The library was where you went to impress a crush, so we mainlined books, passed them around, and stole them. I’m lucky to have had that.
If your life so far was a series of texts, which text (fiction or non-fiction) represents you at this moment?
I’m reading The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa translated by Sawako Nakayasu. Sagawa was a 1920s-30s literary figure in Tokyo. The book has essays, poems and bits of her diaries. I highly recommend the two-page essay, ‘When Passing Between Trees’. Everything in the book, really. It’s a lesson in making associative leaps and writing freehand. The words appear on the page as if the forms and colours and meanings of the visible world are made apparent if we stay still enough. It’s helpful for getting out of your own way when writing.
What’s the last thing you read and disagreed with?
How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm. I agree with parts of the book. But I went to it looking for a scope that was not there. That is, the way that it imagines what a useful revolutionary stance in the global South against Big Oil should look like and its declaration that people in these places are not smart about the issues enough to connect the dots because there has been a ‘general demise of revolutionary politics’. It rankles when the epicenters of climate disasters get a treatment like ‘oh, you are just side dressing’. Like sit-ins and vandalized art and protests and ‘grand property destruction’ are strategies, but that will not work everywhere. Especially in heavily militarized places.
Books were very present in our house and my mother taught literature for years. My mother was also a Pa Amata theatre troupe girl. My childhood entailed listening in on conversations about Wole Soyinka, Okot p’Bitek, Ama Ata Aidoo…
What’s the last thing you read that changed your mind about something?
That will be A Map of Misreading by Harold Bloom. It’s so moody and unserious in its self-involvement. But Bloom really gets into this conversation around literary influence. How the writer is pretty much an incarnation of every encountered text that convinces them of their own creative genius. It is almost impossible to shake off your influences. Invariably, we spend our lives trying to prove that we are not our influences, only to accept this fact in the end.
What makes a text powerful: the subject or how it’s written?
A form vs. content question? Both, to be honest. I forget who said, ‘Form only comes into existence when a thing is born.’ I believe that too. I invest most of my energy in content. When I rewrite, I think about the form. When the content insists on a form, I like that. But it rarely happens to me.
What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
I write and edit simultaneously until a draft exists. And I move the work-in-progress around a lot. Bits of it are everywhere between my phone and laptop and notebooks. It’s messy and I’m never done with rewriting. Only a deadline convinces me to let the work go.
What was your process for writing your essay ‘Who’s Afraid of Nigerian Literature?: The Resilience of Nigerian Writing’?
I had been reading a lot of creative nonfiction and science research papers to teach three first-year classes. That just gives you a sense of how essays work at the craft level and what kind of knowledge generation is useful and what is just vibes, solipsism and group bias—who and what validates ideation, and with what methods. The whole positivism business versus more inclusive approaches. And then this conversation about the death of Nigerian literature was happening online. So, it seemed hard to resist.
And what’s your favourite book by a Nigerian writer dead or alive?
Alive. It’ll always be Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. What a time that was. What I love about this book is that it evolves with age. Now, it insists on its nostalgia and its odd-girl interiority but also makes it clear that she must grow up at some point. It also refuses to be anarcho-pacifist in ways that matter.
I hold the part of me that writes poetry in suspicion because its instinct is self-exposition, to confess without the protection that the essay allows.
How did your approach change in writing your essay, ‘The Exceptional Mind of Cyprian Ekwensi: The Write, the Cityscape and the Faculties of Dreaming’?
I just did not want to write a retrospective on Cyprian Ekwensi that was not rooted in the present moment. Plus, I had been watching all these lectures about Artificial Intelligence (AI) by Max Tegmark from a few years ago. Just this man in Bermudas and his band of nerd students using language in specific ways, all very meta-ethical: nobody is objectively right or wrong. This fragmentation of reality where people talk about AI in ways that matter most to them. And so, my approach was very curiosity driven. I wanted to find out if the essay could contain some kind of point of reference. There was also the interest in tracing that arc between a literary figure like Ekwensi, who had already done some thinking around technology, and the present moment.
Your essay, ‘The Disruptive Potential of Frida Orupabo’s Metamorphic Women’, features in our latest print issue, An African Feminist Manifesto. What drew you to Frida Orupabo’s work?
I hold the part of me that writes poetry in suspicion because its instinct is self-exposition, to confess without the protection that the essay allows. You do exposition in the essay too, but you can always build evidence or whatever you need: historical precedence, data, etc. You have room to build lines of inquiry and way more liberty to negate. Poetry can constrain in a way that is good for the poem but makes demands of the poet. In this essay, I wanted the poet’s impulse to expose without a lot of explaining. The impulse against formalism in Frida Orupabo’s work seemed like an interesting vehicle for exposition.
What’s the most interesting reaction/feedback you’ve had about your writing?
It is complimentary anytime a friend sends a text saying they read something I wrote, or they disagree with a position I have taken, and we do a back and forth. The exchange of ideas, but also the care it takes to show up in that way is hard and valuable.
What is the most meaningful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
I have gotten so much from teachers and friends through the years, but my go-to advice would be a mix of Kemi Falodun saying, ‘Life is long’ and my craft professor, Ocean Vuong, telling me to pay attention to momentum in my writing. I also picked up a lesson from John Barth in conversation with Michael Silverblatt where he talks about ‘deduced reckoning’. This idea of taking stock of where one has been in other to stake out where one must go next in work and in life. Sort of like, this is your plot, and you must reimagine it differently every time you look at it. All writing is re-orchestration. And Ladan Osman gives the best advice, not to make a writing life harder than it is. Get love when you can and get help.
Which book did you enjoy in the last year and wish more people knew about?
That will be The Fisherman’s Invocation by Gabriel Okara. It needs to be in the mix again. Okara’s sequence poems and his approach to surrealism surprised me in a good way.
I have gotten so much from teachers and friends through the years, but my go-to advice would be a mix of Kemi Falodun saying, ‘Life is long’ and my craft professor, Ocean Vuong, telling me to pay attention to momentum in my writing.
What’s a book on your bookshelf that might surprise your friends?
I’m not sure. But my friends also have curious reading interests that shape my own.
Who are the Nigerian writers you’re most excited about today (and why?)
Yinka Elujoba, JK Anowe, Kemi Falodun, Logan February, Nome Patrick Emeka, Gbenga Adesina, and Adedayo Agarau. There are many writers I’d love to list here. But these ones, it’s very important to me that their works exist. I can’t imagine it otherwise. I go to their work because of how they see and how they use language.
Which classic Nigerian novel have you only recently read for the first time?
I recently read The Famished Road by Ben Okri. It took me this long to read it because I struggle with reading fantasy and magical realism. I’ll watch films in these genres but not read books. Last year, I came around, picked up The Famished Road and loved it.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
Lately, I find myself reading good science writing and creative nonfiction about how things work. First for research but also when it’s well written, it’s hard to top that. I think the world of science and the literary world need to meet more often. I like books or texts where that interaction is happening. I love Life on Mars by the poet, Tracy K. Smith, for this reason. I try to read it every time I find it. There’s Kimiko Hahn’s Toxic Flora: Poems where scientific language is treated as source material. I have recently enjoyed the essay ‘The Mountains of Pi’ by Richard Preston. I’m also reading Daniyal Mueenuddin’s short stories for his depictions of place and place-specific invention. He manages character interaction across social divides and shared space in a very shrewd, no bullshit way.
Lately, I find myself reading good science writing and creative nonfiction about how things work. First for research but also when it’s well written, it’s hard to top that.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on my first collection of poems which I’m workshopping. It’s a reimagining of Boyloaf (the pardoned rebel leader, ‘seaman’ and guerrilla fighter) from early life to self-exile. Also, some longer prose.
Question from Tomi Obaro: When do you know when a piece just isn’t working?
I can be a slob, so my sense of risk versus reward is quite heightened, I like to think. If it’s not going to work or offer incentives research-wise, I’m very honest with myself about that. I don’t get into it.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft
If you listen to music when you write, what genre and what go-to album/playlist? If not, what gets you through a draft?
Who do you think we should interview next?
If he’s not done one already, Carey Baraka⎈
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