Nigerian public health expert and author of Small by Small, Ike Anya, believes there is a freshness and vibrancy to African storytelling: ‘This comes from the combination of a long history of storytelling through various mediums, a wealth of unshared rich material and a population of young people equipped with digital tools that have pushed us towards what I like to call an equalization of voice.’
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 often say that being born to my parents was the first lottery I won. I grew up in a warm house filled with books of all kinds, in the small university town of Nsukka, and I was a precocious reader. I gobbled up everything from children’s books by Enid Blyton and children’s African folktales to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Alex Haley’s Roots when I was five or six. I also read the African Writers Series, the Pacesetters books, romance novels by Denise Robins and Barbara Cartland, Mills and Boon, thrillers like the James Hadley Chase books and the Nick Carter-Killmaster series; child mysteries like The Hardy Boys; Nancy Drew; The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton and Eileen Soper; James Baldwin; Flora Nwapa; Anezi Okoro; Chukwuemeka Ike; Fredrick Forsyth; Jeffrey Archer; Judith Krantz; Jackie Collins; all kinds of books. When I had depleted our bookshelves, I turned to those of friends and neighbours and the wonderful Children’s Centre Library set up by some women in the university. Later, at King’s College, towards the end of term, when teachers were marking our exam scripts and we were left to run free for a few days, I would retreat to the college library and read the set of World Book Encyclopaedias. I think by form three or four, I had read the whole set. I also read a lot of newspapers and magazines from Okike, the literary journal, to Time and Newsweek, Woman’s Own, Punch, The Economist, Readers Digest, everything.
In your earliest days as a medical student, what books were foundational to your study and practice?
For each stage, there were classic texts. For anatomy there were the pale blue Cunningham’s Manual of Practical Anatomy (volumes one to three) by Rachel Koshi. I skipped volume three, which is why my knowledge of the anatomy of the head, neck and nervous system is shaky. For physiology, there were two texts: one by the American author William Francis Ganong Jr, and my preferred one, by Arthur Guyton. There was also a textbook of African physiology, Textbook of Physiology by Gabriel C. Ezeilo, a rare Nigerian inclusion on the list. I cannot remember the biochemistry text, but later there was Muir’s Textbook of Pathology, with its beautifully written, almost poetic descriptions accompanying grotesque illustrations of diseased body parts. For pharmacology, a choice of US (Bertram G. Katzung) or British (Peter N Bennett). The British text was my preferred one. And then Obstetrics’ by Ten Teachers, and Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine.
What’s the greatest thing/text/book you’ve ever read on medicine/public health?
There are the novels about becoming a doctor by Erich Segal and Anezi Okoro and Richard Gordon’s comic, Doctor in the House, which were early inspirations. Later Abraham Verghese’s novel, Cutting for Stone, and his less well-known non-fiction. More recently, An Imperfect Storm by my friends Chikwe and Vivianne Ihekweazu. And I always recommend Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexanders Masters to new registrars starting out in public health.
High-flying students at King’s College either read medicine or electronic engineering—and engineering was too dry and lifeless for me.
What inspired you to pursue a career in medicine?
This is a question I tried to answer by writing my memoir, and I am afraid I still don’t have a decisive answer. There is a memory of a doctor’s toy set I loved as a child, a present from my godfather Professor Mike Nwachuku (whose granddaughter, Kehinde Winful, has just had her first novel published in the United States). Then, the books I listed above; and accompanying my father, a parasitologist, on field trips studying the Guinea worm. But beyond that, there was also the expectation that a high-flying student at King’s College either read medicine or electronic engineering—and engineering was too dry and lifeless for me.
What’s the last thing you read that changed your mind about something?
It was not a book, and it was less mind-changing than revelatory, but a recent Financial Times article that showed me for the first time how dependent the British and European military were on US support had my jaw hitting the floor. I don’t think I have completely recovered yet.
What was your process for writing your memoir, Small by Small: Becoming a Doctor in 1990s Nigeria?
I tried the much recommended ‘write x hundred words a day, every day’ discipline and failed because my head was so full of day-to-day activities that I could not get in the zone. So, I resorted to taking out periods when I would find a quiet comfortable affordable place, retreat there for a fixed period and write obsessively while I was there. Knowing that the clock was ticking and my return to the chaos of the outside world awaited helped focus my mind in making the most of that time. My friend Ike Echeruo found me a Christian retreat centre near Aburi, on the hills overlooking Accra. It was a substitute for Nigeria—the sights, sounds, flavours and smells were similar enough to help stimulate my memories, but electricity supply was more constant and reliable.
Small by Small is a ‘medical memoir unlike any from the West, this is filled with the colour and vibrancy of tempestuous 1990s Nigeria, where political unrest, social change and a worsening economy make a doctor’s life particularly challenging.’ What motivated you to document your experiences?
As we used to say in history exams at school, there were the immediate and the remote causes. In 2012, when my essay, ‘People Don’t Get Depressed in Nigeria’, was published through pure serendipity in Granta, my sister Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie insisted I say yes if an agent or publisher asked if I was working on a book. I followed her advice and soon had some expressions of interest. I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I took a few weeks unpaid leave to try and start a book. The subject evidently had to be my training and early years practising in Nigeria, as I had been reflecting on them for a long time, and the anecdotes I shared were always warmly received. When it came to the actual writing, I was trying to do a few things. First, to try and understand how I went from a gauche 18-year-old school-leaver to the young man in a white coat in A&E, confidently saying to the mother of an ill infant, ‘Take him home, give him two spoons of this every eight hours and he will be fine.’ I also wanted to show how medical education all over the world is in many ways similar, but in many ways also very different. Finally, I wanted to bear witness to life in 1990s Nigeria and the realities of living under a military dictatorship as I was beginning to see young Nigerians wistfully hankering for a return to the 90s.
What’s one thing about the reactions to the book that surprised you?
I was surprised by how often people have said that they had been touched and inspired by how honestly and frankly I had documented my experience of failure. I was particularly surprised by several people casually referring to ‘that period when you were suffering from depression after failing that exam’, as I had never actually recognized it as that. I was also surprised by how the feelings of anger, rage and frustration came back to me as I wrote about the day Abacha seized power. I could not sleep on the night I wrote that section, although it was 20 years later. Scarier was the fact that if you had asked me the day before if I had been affected by that event, I would have said no. It made me wonder what other unresolved emotions or hidden mental scars I might still have.
I wanted to bear witness to life in 1990s Nigeria and the realities of living under a military dictatorship as I was beginning to see young Nigerians wistfully hankering for a return to the 90s.
You are the co-founder of the Abuja Literary Society. What excites you about African storytelling?
I am excited by all storytelling, but I think that there is a freshness and vibrancy to African storytelling. This comes from the combination of a long history of storytelling through various mediums, a wealth of unshared rich material and a population of young people equipped with digital tools that have pushed us towards what I like to call an equalization of voice. I am awed and truly thankful that the small initiative Ken Okere, Victor Anoliefo and I started over 20 years ago in a very informal way is still providing a platform for these stories, and I am thankful to the many people who have kept the dream alive through the years.
And what makes a great story?
In a good story, I look for beautiful language, words that are carefully placed to elicit a sense of beauty; a great plot that keeps me wondering what next, played out by characters who grab and hold my attention—either because I love, loathe, admire or am repulsed by them. These elements pulled together in a way that subtly makes me think, illuminates an obscure issue, or provides fresh perspectives on a well-known issue and educates me—that is a good story in my books.
What book (from Africa) do you feel has not yet received the attention it deserves?
I would like to list virtually all African books because there are so many hidden gems and probably even more that I am not yet aware of. For brevity, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s masterpiece Dust deserves a much wider audience, and I would say the same of Tendai Huchu’s debut from many years ago The Hairdresser of Harare.
What’s the last great book someone recommended to you?
It was not a recommendation, but I bought Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom years ago when it first came out and never got round to reading it until a few months ago, and I was struck by how invested I became in the characters’ lives and how balanced each of the characters were—no one was wholly good or wholly bad, like in real life.
What’s a book on your bookshelf that might catch people by surprise?
I recently saw Sidney Sheldon’s Rage of Angels on a second-hand bookstall and bought it because I remembered my excitement when I got my hands on it many years ago. I think it was a copy owned by my aunt, when I was in my first year at King’s College. I was keen to see what I would make of it now.
I was also surprised by how the feelings of anger, rage and frustration came back to me as I wrote about the day Abacha seized power. I could not sleep on the night I wrote that section, although it was 20 years later.
Which three books from/in Nigeria should everyone be reading at this moment?
Tough question with the plethora of great books coming out of Nigeria now. Three books cannot capture the complexity of Nigeria today so I suggest An Imperfect Storm by my friends and colleagues Chikwe Ihekweazu and Viviane Ihekweazu about Ihekweazu’s time leading Nigeria’s response to COVID; Arinze Ifeakandu’s God’s Children are Little Broken Things for its skilful portrayal of a Nigeria that feels very familiar and at the same time completely new; and I love how Chikodili Emelumadu’s Dazzling and Eloghosa Osunde’s Vagabonds! are both written in dialects that ring true to Nigeria. I also love and Emmanuel Iduma’s I am Still With You and Damilare Kuku’s Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad.
Who are the Nigerian authors you’re most excited about today (and why?)
I can’t pick one, but I would say the youngest generation of Nigerian writers who are breaking new ground, experimenting with language, narrative and thought across genres, from poetry and literary criticism to fiction and non-fiction. The Republic is doing a great job showcasing many of them.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
I am reading about the precolonial and early colonial history of my hometown Abiriba, in Abia State, and learning for the first time when and how the British colonial project first reached my people. I am marvelling at the degree of agency afforded to women and how completely even the memory of things like the iko practice, where married women could engage in extra marital relationships that were recognized and approved by society, were obliterated so completely by the Victorian missionaries. It is interesting that they did not attack polygamy with the same degree of vehemence, for instance. I am also learning more about the obu figures from Abiriba, which are now recognized as masterpieces of art, and how they came to global attention.
And what topic do you wish more authors were writing about these days?
The precolonial and early colonial history of African countries from the perspectives of Africans. Also, non-fiction accounts of the early post-colonial period to now. There is so much that we do not know or understand about even the relatively recent past. And when we glibly say, ‘it is not our culture’, or ‘was life under Abacha really that bad?’ or ‘I don’t believe there was a time Nigerians would get notice from NEPA before there was an electricity power outage’, it reminds me of the duty we owe to tell our stories. What was it like to be dressed up and taken as children to watch public executions on Sundays at Bar Beach as a family excursion in the 1970s? Or, as I experienced as a child in Nsukka, watching KGB agents crawl the university campus in search of an eastern bloc academic and his family who had defected while teaching at Nsukka. I am beginning to realize that there is so much we do not know, so many stories untold. And as Chinua Achebe said, if we do not know when the rain started beating us, how can we address its effects on us?
There is so much that we do not know or understand about even the relatively recent past. And when we glibly say, ‘it is not our culture’ … it reminds me of the duty we owe to tell our stories.
What are you currently working on?
Simultaneously, with varying degrees of success: a sequel to Small by Small, to answer the question from many readers about what subsequently happened to the young doctor at the end of the book; an account of my grandparents’ lives which is slowly becoming a story of my search for details of their lives and a hodgepodge family history. My grandparents all lived incredibly fascinating lives—slavery, war, widowhood, early African Christianity and more. And a sort of modern Aesop fable, sharing the life lessons I have learnt through the stories of how I learnt them.
Question from Chimezie Chika: What do you want your work to represent in the world?
I find that a difficult question as it is not something I think consciously about. I suppose I hope that people from all kinds of backgrounds enjoy my writing, that I bear witness to the times, places and events that I have experienced, and that I make people laugh and make them think and perhaps realize how similar all human beings are and at the same time how different all human beings are.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft
When did you start writing and why?
Who should we interview next?
I.O. Echeruo—the author of the collection of short stories Expert in All Styles. I have had the privilege of reading his forthcoming novel in draft and it holds a lot of promise⎈
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