A night with Tropical Fish
Baingana, who is in Nigeria as the first foreign writer at the Ebedi Writers’ residency made the long trip from Iseyin, Oyo State to grace the event in the capital. The reading at JB’s Bar and Grill, Maitama was as relaxed as always, with many trooping in to pick the brain of the Commonwealth Writers […]
Baingana, who is in Nigeria as the first foreign writer at the Ebedi Writers’ residency made the long trip from Iseyin, Oyo State to grace the event in the capital.
The reading at JB’s Bar and Grill, Maitama was as relaxed as always, with many trooping in to pick the brain of the Commonwealth Writers Prize winner and have a better understanding of why she chose to write about Uganda under the shadow of Idi Amin.
Singer Chigirl loosened the nerves with her musical exercises adventure, taking the audience through some vocal exercises before unleashing her version of Fever, originally recorded by American Little Willie John in 1956.
But the night was about books and Baingana’s was a collection of linked short stories about the coming of age of three sisters growing up in the shadow of the Idi Amin dictatorship. It touches on love, sex, AIDS, religion, the challenges of being a woman and a sense of displacement.
When Baingana took to the hot seat, the audience was tuned to receive from her some of the wisdom she had poured into the book. Her first offering for the night was a portion about the sexual encounter of a young Ugandan girl with a white man.
When quizzed by Molara Wood, who moderated the reading, on why she chose to explore sex the way she did, the author explained that she wrote the book while living in the US and so felt free to explore that theme, something she admitted she might not have done had she been living in Uganda where she said the reaction to the novel was somewhat muted because of its content.
For Baingana, whose work some reviewers have said has a ‘strong biographical element’, she had a ‘normal childhood’ growing up under Idi Amin. She did not realise that there was something unusual about making do with ‘just two teaspoons of sugar and a slice of bread’ for breakfast. The shortage of commodities then was a result of international sanctions against Uganda.
Growing up with stern looking soldiers on the streets seemed normal until the invading Tanzanian Army kicked out Idi Amin and she saw soldiers laughing and talking with people that she realised there was something that had been wrong with the way they had been living.
However, she said, she made a conscious effort in her book to demonstrate that Africans have ‘universal concerns’ such as ‘being dumped by lovers and broken toys’ and other such trivial things as opposed to the image of a people only preoccupied with hunger and AIDS.
But AIDS featured prominently in her novel. It was the focus of her second reading on the night. One of the sisters in the book, Rosa, had got AID and while she lay withering on a hospital bed, she wrote a moving note to a friend about her plight. It was gruesome and brought to mind the image of people wasting away and yet reaching out for the vestiges of the love and hope that had been their lives.
“I write about AIDS because I want it to be a record of what has happened, because I have lost many friends to it, a lot of them wiped out as if they hadn’t existed,” she said.
As she observed, the availability of ARV drugs had blurred the image of skeletal people suffering with AIDS, and for her that image lingers because she had seen many of her classmates like that.
The audience prompted her to read a more uplifting passage and the author seemed to have some difficulties finding one. What she ended up reading was a detailed passage about a young girl exploring her parents’ room. It was graphic and showcased the author’s descriptive prowess. At least it wasn’t gloomy.
When quizzed on why she writes, the author said, “I went into writing because I wasn’t good at anything else.” This was the much needed comic relief the audience wanted. After the laughter had died down, the author explained that she got a degree in law and realised she was doing more creative writing workshops than law practice and thought perhaps her future lay elsewhere.
As Baingana heads back to Ebedi where she said she had come to escape her three-year-old son so she could find time to write and where she is currently working on a non-fiction, the echoes of her first book is still being felt, seven years after it was first published.
The night came to a close with Valerino strumming his way into hearts with his guitar and song, Anaconda, which was received with a thunderous applause. There was the usual raffle where winners carted away books and snacks and book signing by the author.