‘Everyone Can Tell a Story’

First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.

Our questions are italicized.

My upbringing was a unique combination of sophisticated and rustic. For example, my siblings and I owned a variety of musical instruments, including accordions and bugles; at the same time, our parents took us to the farm and taught us how to plant and harvest cassava and egusi, and to process garri and akamu. This same unique combination reflected in the books I read, the majority of which were purchased by my parents. They bought us all the Western classics by authors like William Shakespeare and Emily Brontë. They also bought us all the African classics written by authors like Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa, plus story books from across the African continent—the kinds of stories where naughty children were punished by evil spirits, and clever men outwitted ferocious elephants by sticking their hands into the animal’s rectum and extracting its internal organs during a dance, and where every child was orphaned or deprived. Looking back, many of those African stories were filled with all sorts of supernatural horror that would be considered unfit for children in many parts of the world today! I read so many of these African stories that I began wishing that my parents were also poor and could not afford school fees. In fact, I didn’t encounter Enid Blyton and such until after I left home to attend boarding school.

The Book of Daniel.

It would have to be one of those dangerous pieces of advice that people dish out all over the place. A particularly popular one is: Follow your heart. What if the person’s heart is leading them into a dungeon of doom? What if the person’s heart is filled with foolishness? ‘Follow your heart’ is not just unwise counsel; it is a recipe for anarchy. Imagine a world where each of us followed our heart to wherever it led us, without caring for the people around us or the laws of the land.

Everyone can tell a story, but the skillful use of words is what I usually find captivating when reading a piece. The imagery. The alliteration. The emotion. The quotable quotes. Think Shakespeare. Think the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The skillful placing of word against word is what builds the masterpiece and turns a story into a memorable work of art. I often tell people how fascinated I was with Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. But while I have absolutely no recollection of the plot, I still remember how struck I was by her use of words. Her writing was pure art.

I spit out everything onto the page, from beginning to end, and then go back and edit. I’m one of those people who like to tick off things on my to-do list; so, it helps me psychologically to get to the end first, and then settle down to revise.