3 years of research went into writing ‘Afonja’ – Tunde Leye

Tunde Leye is the author of ‘Afonja: The Rise’ (his latest novel, published in 2018), nominated for the 2019 Nommo Awards. He is also author of ‘Golden Sands’, ‘Guardians of the Seal’, and ‘The Rat Race’. Here, he talks about what it took to write his most recent book, the award, and more. Excerpts: Bookshelf: […]

3 years of research went into writing ‘Afonja’ – Tunde Leye

unde Leye is the author of ‘Afonja: The Rise’

Tunde Leye is the author of ‘Afonja: The Rise’ (his latest novel, published in 2018), nominated for the 2019 Nommo Awards. He is also author of ‘Golden Sands’, ‘Guardians of the Seal’, and ‘The Rat Race’. Here, he talks about what it took to write his most recent book, the award, and more. Excerpts:

Bookshelf: Your latest novel, ‘Afonja: The Rise’, was nominated for the Nommo Awards. If it wins, it will be the first award you have won since publishing two other novels and a children’s book. How do you feel about this development?

Tunde Leye: I think right now, I’m not as focused on winning prizes as with ensuring that my book sells and is read widely. I’m glad at the Nommo nomination and was pleasantly surprised by it. But the focus remains on selling the book, and hopefully adapting the story into other forms like stage and film.

Bookshelf: ‘Afonja’ is a bold story. What triggered it?

Leye: I fell in love with our history and when reading about it, found most sources to be foreigners who only have a window into our history and did not understand its nuances. Also, there were not many recent stories based on our history. But if you look at the best books from the ‘40s up to the ‘70s, such as Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, Soyinka’s ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ and Ola Rotimi’s ‘Kurunmi’, you will find that they were based on our history. I believe that this particular point of Oyo history, when the empire began collapsing, needs exploring and looking at from a different perspective, and this book is one such perspective. Hopefully, there will be more.

Bookshelf: How much of what is historical actually influenced the work?

Leye: A lot. I use the analogy of a house. The history serves as the foundation and the pillars of this literary house I have built. But the walls, the rooms, the furnishing and finishing are all fiction. So, if a person died in history, they really died in the book. I however explored fiction in the whys: why did they die? What were the motivations of the actors and what were the human reactions to their deaths? In terms of the warfare also, it is historically clear that Oyo was a major cavalry power and hence this was reflected in the book, with pitched battles involving a combined 30,000 strong cavalry on both sides. Another example is that many of the events happened over about nine years, while in the book, I paced it differently and put it in a couple of months.

Bookshelf: The Oyo Mesi were a strong force to reckon with as shown by history. Today, they can be compared with the role kingmakers, godfathers and cabals play in government. In your book, however, their desire to manipulate and control who becomes king is clear. Were you seeing a link between Nigeria’s past and its present while working on the book?

Leye: Like I always say, the interactions of men with power and in relation to the powerful tends to lean towards the same direction, irrespective of the times in history. Therefore, there are many parallels between both the role, as well as this desire for control by the Oyo Mesi. We see in today’s Nigeria many political godfathers installing their godsons who they expect to be loyal and continually subservient. In most cases, when those godsons taste the power of being the leader, they of course rebel. It was Woruda in the book that said “power changes men. War changes men. Victory changes me.”

Bookshelf: Woruda and Bashorun Asamu succeeded in installing the youthful Aole Arogangan as Alafin in Oyo. But things didn’t go as planned. The Alafin proved to be independent. How much of this is historical?

Leye: Much of this is historically accurate.

Bookshelf: Also, in the Oyo Empire, the northerners were mostly slaves in your book…

Leye: This was historically accurate as well. Oyo obtained slaves in three ways, by conquest, as tribute from its vassals, such as the Dahomey, and by trading mainly with its more northern neighbours. Hence there was a preponderance of northern origin slaves in Oyo at the time. They were particularly prized for their skill in horse-keeping, rope making and cutting hair.

Bookshelf: Did you consider whether Nigerians from the north may be uncomfortable with this?

Leye: I don’t think so. I think the more fundamental question is, is this a correct representation? If it is, then we must not be abashed about telling our history as it was. Eventually, these same northerners sacked Oyo Ile and held Yoruba slaves in Ilorin. These are facts of history, so we should not be shy about telling it.

Bookshelf: Alimi, who is from the north, was set on betraying the Empire right from the onset. How historical is this?

Leye: Betrayal is not the word. Alimi would not have had loyalties to the Oyo Empire. He was not Yoruba, had come from the just victorious Fulani caliphate conquest in the north, and we must assume this was where his loyalties would be. We can infer the motivations from the history in this case. Clearly, there was a religious motivation for Alimi and he must have considered it his duty to conquer and bring into the fold of Islam the non-Muslim Oyo. Subsequent events merely presented this opportunity.

Bookshelf: How challenging was it researching for and writing the book?

Leye: It was very challenging. First, there was not a lot of written sources to get material from. Second was that many of the sources were European with the inherent biases and a lack of full understanding of the nuances. Fortunately, we had Samuel Johnson who was a Yoruba man and who understood many of these nuances put forth his own record which turned out invaluable. From this, others could be explored, including many obscure, more academic sources. There are also sculptures, figurines and other such art that gives insight into how people lived and dressed at the time. There’s also oral tradition available and the oriki of many of the individuals providing key insights. Hence, researching for this work required tenacity and creativity. It took three years of painstaking work.

Bookshelf: What did it take to develop some of your major characters?

Leye: Research. Tons of research. Into lineages, oriki and their roles in running the empire, as well as what their economic and non-economic motivations might have been. Also, I usually let my characters live as opposed to making them simply devices for unfolding the plot. Hence, if a character is a devious person, the question to ask is “given the cultural and circumstantial constraints here, how would a devious person act?” In this way, characters evolve into people with motivations, emotions and that we can actually see ourselves in.

Bookshelf: What are you working on at the moment?

Leye: At the moment, we’re working on a stage adaptation of ‘Afonja: The Rise. We did a mini showing of this at the book launch in Muson Centre and hope to stage the full play once we sort out sponsorship.