Kenyan writer and author of Unbury Our Dead with Song, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, does not believe in the idea of a ‘great African novel’: ‘I do not think there is such a thing as the “great African novel”—or the “great Russian” or “European” novel—nor do I believe in the idea of major and minor literatures. We simply do not know enough and have not read widely enough to make such judgements. The idea of major and minor literatures is manufactured for us.’
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?
I pretty much read everything from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five novels to Karl Marx. But the books I enjoyed the most were by popular fiction writers—Meja Mwangi, John Kiriamiti and David Maillu. Nairobi Heat is dedicated to these popular fiction writers that I enjoyed reading while growing up.
In your earliest days as a literature student, what books were foundational to your study and research?
Certainly, a lot of Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, C. L. R. James, Richard Wright and James Baldwin. My undergraduate thesis was on Wright’s Native Son. I also read Dambudzo Marechera and Can Themba because their cynical madness or craziness also carried the sheer incredulity of being oppressed by another human being who had the power of the colonial and neocolonial state behind them. Even now, at 54 years old, the idea that slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism—and today’s version, what do we call it (all-out oppression?)—ever existed is crazily funny to me. Even though the writers I read understood that it was about the extraction of resources, something that necessitated dehumanization, what ties the books I read then and now together is a common thread of resistance.
My father, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, is a writer. I grew up watching him write. As a child, I would buy newspapers for him and deliver endless cups of tea while he worked and wrote in his home office. So, I have always written.
You grew up in a village just outside of Nairobi, Kenya, before going on to study in the United States for your university education. What memory from your hometown do you cherish the most?
There was a swamp nearby that, back in the day, had hippos, but it had since dried up and fossilized. The best part was the clay—my sister and I would go there to gather clay and make pots. Another nearby pond inspired the images in the poem below. The poem is dedicated to Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged by the Nigerian government for his political activism against the exploitation and environmental devastation of Ogoniland by Shell. Thinking about it now, it really was a political murder carried out by a government on behalf of an international corporation.
Letter to My Nephew (For Ken Saro-Wiwa)
The sun is locked in evening, half shadow
half light, hills spread like hunchbacks over
plains, branches bowing to birth of night.
It’s an almost endless walk until the earth
opens up to a basin of water. You gasp
even the thin hairs on your forearm breathe,
flowers wild, two graves of man and wife
lying in perfect symmetry, overrun by wild
strawberries. Gently you part the reeds,
water claims the heat from the earth, you
soak your feet, then lie down hands planted
into the moist earth. You glow. Late at night
when you leave, you will fill your pockets
with wet clay. But many years from now,
you will try to find a perfect peace in many
different landscapes, drill water out of memory
to heal wounded limbs of the earth. You
will watch as machines turn your pond
inside out, spit the two graves inside out
in search of sleek wealth. Many years
later, after much blood has been lost and your
pond drained of all life you will wonder, shortly
before you become the earth’s martyr, what
is this thing that kills not just life but even death?
What’s the first book you read that made you think you wanted to be a writer?
My father, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, is a writer. I grew up watching him write. As a child, I would buy newspapers for him and deliver endless cups of tea while he worked and wrote in his home office. So, I have always written. I think the question ought to be: which writers do I envy as a writer myself, just for the sheer breadth of their imaginations? Writers like Jennifer Makumbi, Nnedi Okorafor, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Ben Okri, Can Themba, and poets such as Arthur Nortje and Hart Crane. But if I had to name one novel that truly stopped me in my tracks, it would be Butler’s Kindred. There was something about the imagination, the beauty of it, even as it grappled with slavery and racism in the United States.
What’s the last thing you read that changed your mind about something?
We write, we learn, we grow, and then we write again. But Panashe Chigumadzi’s essay, ‘Why I Don’t Talk to Nigerians About Race’, stands out to me because it got me thinking about the different kinds of colonial racism—settler versus indirect rule—and how we, as Africans, have responded differently. Helon Habila’s Oil on Water stands out as well—not only for its observant and journalistic writing but for how it really goes into the heart of why Nigeria, and by extension, Kenya, is so messed up.
What is the last book/text you disagreed with, and why?
There aren’t disagreements, only more thought and growth. That said, I hate V. S. Naipaul with a passion, as I do colonial writers like Karen Blixen and that whole group. Still, I think the real question is: what are the books I find fascinating and why? Take Maryse Condé’s What is Africa to Me, or Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother or Maya Angelou’s All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes—these three books offer different perspectives on how Black people in the diaspora relate to the continent. But for me, the question becomes: having been born in the US, grown up in Kenya, and returned to the US in 1990 where I’ve been ever since, what is the diaspora to me? And what can I learn about questions of home and resistance from these three questioning but dedicated voices?
If I had to name one novel that truly stopped me in my tracks, it would Butler’s Kindred. There was something about the imagination, the beauty of it, even as it grappled with slavery and racism in the United States.
What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
You just write until the sound you hear in your head matches the words in your imagination. I do not write all the time—sometimes you have to let your imagination lie fallow so it can grow something new. But for me, I have always written when my imagination tells me I have something new to say, or when I feel the need to say something.
What was your process for writing your 2011 crime novel, Nairobi Heat?
I think of it as a found book. The bare bones of the plot are real life. I had come back home late one night, I lived on the third floor, and there was a white woman in a cheerleader outfit passed out by the stairs. I did not know her, so I called an ambulance, but a cop showed up first. The cop was Black. At some point, I found myself looking at the ‘scene’: an African, an African American and a passed-out white woman on the stairs. So, in the novel, the Black cop is investigating the murder of a white woman, and the main suspect is an African. From those bare bones, the plot becomes an adventure. This is where I have to say I am in love with my imagination. It was fun to flesh that out.
Looking back, what’s one thing you might revise/do differently if you were to write it again?
When I write, I write to completion. I do not necessarily enjoy going back to read my work and wondering if I could have done this or that differently. I think once a book is done, it’s done. Sure, we learn more and hopefully write better over time, but I do not take instruction well, or rather, my imagination does not like to go back. It is really a slash, burn and move-on-to-the-next-field process.
How did your approach to writing change while working on your latest novel, Unbury Our Dead with Song?
I listened to a lot of Tizita (Ethiopian blues) music—and I modelled or moulded my characters around the music. But of course, all writers want to be musicians—so that was my imagination telling musicians that ‘I can match and outpace you as a writer.’ I can capture what they do with sound, but with words—in fact, maybe the word was the first sound. It was fun writing it.
When I write, I write to completion. I do not necessarily enjoy going back to read my work and wondering if I could have done this or that differently. I think once a book is done, it’s done.
And what’s one thing about the reactions to the book that surprised you?
I once did an event—during COVID, so it was on Zoom—where a Tizita musician opened the session with a Tizita influenced by the book. Now, that was a gift!
In 2018, you published your non-fiction book, The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership. What drew you to this topic?
We often begin our literary tradition from the wrong historical period. We begin with Chinua Achebe, the Makerere writers, or perhaps with Amos Tutuola, and then we keep updating that list as new writers emerge. It was necessary to acknowledge that long before we became subjects of the English language, there were early South African, Amharic and Afro-Arab writers producing rich literary work. In its subtext, there is a great deal of anger, because I do feel robbed of a longer literary tradition. And the question is: would my writing be any different if the longer literary tradition had been part of my imaginative ether? Then there is the question of language—imagine all the African literature we can’t access because it is written in a different language, and we never truly valued translation? Yet, translation is where all languages meet.
You’re a professor of Literatures in English at Cornell University. Is there such a thing as the ‘Great African Novel’?
No, I do not think there is such a thing as the ‘great African novel’—or the ‘great Russian’ or ‘European’ novel—nor do I believe in the idea of major and minor literatures. We simply do not know enough and have not read widely enough to make such judgements. The idea of major and minor literatures is manufactured for us. One person’s ‘minor’ novel is another person’s ‘major’ novel. I think the larger question is: what, within our literary ecosystems, determines what we value and what we do not?
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
I enjoy reading writers like Yvonne Owour, Makumbi and Condé.
And what topic do you wish more authors were writing about these days?
Anything around how Black writers, revolutionaries and activists have interacted with each other to create solidarity, even when contentious.
Long before we became subjects of the English language, there were early South African, Amharic and Afro-Arab writers producing rich literary work.
What are you currently working on?
I think my next writing will be on experiencing Black music following my Tizita music novel.
Question from Fareda Banda: What was your mother’s favourite book? (My mum loves Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter).
I am not sure, and it is a tragedy for me.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft
Who are you writing for? Why, how, and in what language?
Who do you think we should interview next?
If you haven’t already, check out Rémy Ngamije, the Namibian author of The Eternal Audience of One and Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space: A Literary Mixtape. His writing style is both unique and original, with a good dose of humour. I’m in awe of his imagination⎈
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