Nigerian writer and author of God’s Children Are Broken Little Things, Arinze Ifeakandu, holds the Nigerian government responsible for the anxiety experienced by queer Nigerians in the country: ‘I believed that our ruling class was largely responsible, by entrenching such avoidable hardship, for much of the intimate fractures around us. And that the people’s (and the state’s) obstinate homophobia was to blame for what I considered the “nervous condition” of gay youth.’
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?
Growing up, I read everything I could find—books from the Lantern series that my mother bought me, Maltina comics, legal thrillers by John Grisham as well as adventure novels my uncle lent me. I also read a copy of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe that I salvaged from my neighbour’s pile (he was throwing things out, and the book was missing a few pages). In secondary school, I found that I loved history, and I read anything that caught my fancy from the library’s collection. In class, we read Chinua Achebe, D. Olu Olagoke, Ola Rotimi, Peter Abrams, Richard Wright. In SS 1, my dad bought all my literature and history texts—twice! This was because my school set coincided with the period when they were combining the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) syllabi, which only became clear after resumption, when my dad had bought the texts for just one syllabus. I read them all, some before the long vacation was over: Black Boy by Richard Wright; Hamlet, Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice from a collection of William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets; Arms and the Man by Benard Shaw and Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. There was also George Eliot’s Silas Marner, which I read on and off for a few years, completing it after I had gone to university. I can still remember the man and his loom, his secret pot of gold, his loneliness and solitude.
What’s the last thing you read and disagreed with?
They are too many to remember.
What’s the last thing you read that changed your mind about something?
I would say that Marilynne Robinson’s What Are We Doing Here? is not so much changing my mind as allowing me to accept more the part of me—which I sometimes resist, ha!—that is in tune with the divine.
I believed that our ruling class was largely responsible, by entrenching such avoidable hardship, for much of the intimate fractures around us.
What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
It is a mix of both. I, however, make a habit of continuation, only seldom going back to already-written sections in a bid to edit stuff. I read and tweak the last few paragraphs of whatever had been done before, then try to proceed from there. I do put some pressure on my sentences at the initial moment of generating text, focusing on clarity. This, I think, is largely because I enjoy reading what I have written at the end of the writing day, and so if the language does not sound ‘sweet’ to me, I cut that section out and paste it into a separate document, which I often repurpose for something else or for a different section of the same piece.
What was your process for writing your debut collection, God’s Children Are Little Broken Things?
What happens when you begin to write a collection of stories as an undergrad but don’t send it out to an agent or editor until you feel reasonably ready, even though there were a few requests after the Caine Prize? (This finally happened after I graduated university and began postgraduate studies.) What happens is, you outgrow a whole bunch of initial stories. You become more adept stylistically, and your perspective becomes even more complex, weighted with the awareness of accumulating years. And so, I found myself re-writing a good number of those stories entirely, keeping the central conflicts that had propelled them but revamping them structurally and emotionally. Also, I would write one story and then have a couple or more fallow months in which nothing happened, just my imagination and me battling over what the next story would be.
God’s Children Are Little Broken Things is a collection of nine exhilarating stories of queer love in contemporary Nigeria. What inspired this collection of short stories?
Love inspired it. Love for myself and my friends, my family, my hometowns and my country. This love gave wings to my imagination. I believed that our ruling class was largely responsible, by entrenching such avoidable hardship, for much of the intimate fractures around us. And that the people’s (and the state’s) obstinate homophobia was to blame for what I considered the ‘nervous condition’ of gay youth. It was my ambition to dramatize all the ways in which that played out in romantic and familial contexts.
And what was the trickiest/most challenging story to write?
‘Happy Is a Doing Word’ required the most from me during editing. Funnily, it was among the earliest stories in the collection, if not the first, and was the last story I rewrote before editing began, having abandoned it for years.
What’s one thing about the reactions to the book that surprised you?
That queer men in Nigeria and other African countries, and those from across the world who had grown up in the years before LGBTQ rights became widely entrenched in Western countries, would feel so deeply understood by it. I knew—hoped—that readers would connect to the stories, but to learn of the depth of that connection? A pleasant, delightful surprise! When it was first released in the US, I was equally surprised and moved by the responses of booksellers.
The people’s (and the state’s) obstinate homophobia was to blame for what I considered the ‘nervous condition’ of gay youth.
What is the most meaningful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
From my friend, Obi-Young: just do it. Sometimes an idea or story might seem larger than life, and so we project about it, putting off the work. Obi-Young recognizes the fear behind such postponements and says, ‘Just do it’. You just might nail it, but you also might not get it exactly right, but in the doing you learn something vital.
And what’s the first book you read that made you think you wanted to be a writer?
It is not a book, but oral literature is still literature! So, my mother’s stories, which comprised mostly of folktales and family lore.
Do you enjoy rereading books? If so, which book have you reread the most, and why?
I used to reread books, especially as a teenager. Nowadays, I reread sections but not entire books. I reread many books back then for lack of plenty, availability diversity (we should have functional public libraries!). What happens is, you read a book like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in JSS 3 and you become pickier than ever before. So, I reread that book a lot. And then I reread Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun were, for me, a manifestation of something I had been gearing toward with all my reading without knowing it, something I needed. Previously, my Nigerian heroes were distant, hallowed by history, and their characters lived in the Nigeria of my grandparents. Now, they could very well be my cousins, my friends. And Half of a Yellow Sun, The Last Duty and The Joys of Motherhood had some of the most realistic sex scenes I had ever read, and women talked ‘filth’ like I saw them do in real life, and I was smitten by this, by the realness of everything.
What’s a writing goal you have for the new year? Are there specific genres or styles you want to explore in your writing in 2025?
Yes! I used to spin long tales for my siblings and classmates, stories that would be classified as fantasy. I want to write something in that vein, an exploration, perhaps, as I have been a good son of realism for the past decade. I already have a quartet of stories out in that genre, published last year. Just a few more, haha. I find myself dragging my feet back to poetry; ‘dragging’ because I still spend much of my time thinking about stories, writing stories. Still, I find it deeply fulfilling when something holds my attention that can only be expressed in verse, which happens sometimes. My writing goal this year is to follow my creative curiosities.
I think it is important for artists to listen to good advice, but even more important is knowing your ambitions and trusting your vision. That way, you can sieve the helpful from the clueless, mean-spirited or creatively limiting.
And which author(s) or book(s) are you excited to read for the first time in 2025?
I am looking forward to Chisom Okafor’s forthcoming poetry collection, All I Know About A Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It. Some books by former colleagues/instructors arriving in the mail shortly that I simply cannot wait to get my hands on are: Small Rain by Garth Greenwell, Digging Stars by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Hombrecito by Santiago Jose Sanchez.
What book (from Africa) do you feel has not yet received the attention it deserves?
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue? Only because I loved that book, a truly enjoyable read.
Which three books from/on Nigeria should everyone be reading at this moment?
Logan February’s Painted Blue with Saltwater, Helon Habila’s Measuring Time, and Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo’s fast-paced beauty, The Tiny Things Are Heaviest, set for release in June 2025.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
On and off, I have been reading and thinking about the divine and the sublime; slavery in pre-colonial West Africa; and about the genocides in Congo, Sudan and Palestine.
I dream for every writer to follow their deepest, truest fancies.
And what topic do you wish more authors were writing about these days?
I dream for every writer to follow their deepest, truest fancies.
What are you currently working on?
I am currently revising my novel.
Question from Dennis Mugaa: What story or novel do you wish you had written differently?
Hmm. I’m not sure. I gave the book my best, and I like to believe that each story was written as it should have at the time of its conception and finetuning, altogether showcasing something of my pressing obsessions and state of mind, a snapshot of who I was at that moment in time. I love and accept the inner boy, the man who loved me through it all, from the deeply pleasing to the messy and rocky. And so, it is with craft as with life—the themes, the structure of each piece, was dear to me.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft
I would love a future First Draft author to talk about a writer whose work they would like to see more of out there. Mine would be Otosirieze Obi-Young. Many readers might know him for his non-fiction and his incomparable work with Open Country Mag, but I first fell in love with his fiction. I had some of the most animated, enriching conversations with my students while teaching ‘A Tenderer Blessing’. I would love to see more of his short stories out there this year.
Who should we interview next?
Ebenezer Agu, the founding editor of 20.35 Africa. He is also one of the most exciting poets I know working right now. I have read his unpublished poetry collection, and it is truly divine⎈
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