‘To Be Called a Writer Is to Be Called to Clarity’

Historian and author of ‘Nigeria’s March to The Gallows: Nigeria, South Sudan and the False Security of Secession’, Gbọláhàn Adébíyì, writes like a baker: ‘while researching and writing is rigorous, the joys of the rigour are in the eventual publishing, a properly-baked cake—between writer and editor—to share with all.’

By Gbóláhàn Adébíyì

July 29, 2022

Photo Illustration by Ojima Abalaka / THE REPUBLIC.

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, there were no children literature books lying around for reading nor were any such books read to my inquisitive ears. My childhood was full of solitude and playfulness as my parents struggled to make ends meet. So, instead of being surrounded by stacks of books, I was surrounded by old furniture.

In primary school, I read tales like ‘The Bell and The Cat’ and ‘The Dark Continent’ in a book series titled Your Mastery of English.

I never saw or visited a library until I was eleven years old, and this was during my first year in secondary school. At this point, my reading became quite extensive but limited to the secondary school/WAEC syllabus. Alongside my classmates, I devoured texts like D. Olu Olagoke’s The Incorruptible Judge,’ Ifeanyi Ifeogbuna’s A Woman of Substance, Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu, Asare Kanadu’s A Woman in Her Prime, Kobina Sekyi’s The Blinkards, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, and George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man.

I also read poetry. John Donne’s ‘Death Be Not Proud’ and Sola Owonibi’s ‘Homeless Not Hopeless’ have left on me the strongest mark—a quiet and calm demeanour regarding death and life. All these texts, though read more than a decade ago, continue to shape my thought patterns and, in a way, have influenced my literary writings.

In recent years, my reading segued into some classics: Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of A Yellow Sun, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Femi Osofisan’s Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels, and Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man…

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About the Author

Gbóláhàn Adébíyì

is a writer and media practitioner who studies History at the University of Ìbàdàn. His other keen interests are in African foreign affairs, art and philosophy.

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‘To Be Called a Writer Is to Be Called to Clarity’