I always wanted to write an unconventional book – Mitterand Okorie

Mitterand Okorie is a the author of the novel All that Was Bright and Ugly (Blues and Hills, 2017) which chronicles the romantic escapades of Andre, it’s young protagonist, across Nigeria, the UK and Cyprus. In this interview, the Michael Okpara University Lecturer explains his colourful language and non-conventional approach in his debut novel.   […]

Mitterand Okorie is a the author of the novel All that Was Bright and Ugly (Blues and Hills, 2017) which chronicles the romantic escapades of Andre, it’s young protagonist, across Nigeria, the UK and Cyprus. In this interview, the Michael Okpara University Lecturer explains his colourful language and non-conventional approach in his debut novel.

 

For some writers the title of the book comes before the story and for others it is the other way round. What is the story of the title of your first novel, All that was Bright and Ugly?

The title of the novel, for me, was in a blur mostly until months after I was done with the writing and was discussing details of the publication with my publisher (Blues & Hills). However, I always had a clear conceptual frame or say a clear theme of what the book was about, the way I wanted to tell the story, and the kind of effects I wanted the story to have. 

So it was really at the end of the writing that it hit me, and I was like, wait a minute, it always seems this Andre guy is having a great time, and then his relationships suddenly go south. You know, something happens, he has a nasty break-up, he leaves for another country, leaving his heartthrob behind, or someone leaves him. So, on the one hand, these relationships start with a spark of brightness, and not long after, they leave him in an ugly place. So that was it. I’ll say the title is the sum total of the protagonist’s life, where there are just as much joy as there are pains, as much beauty as there are scars. 

Why did you feel it was an important story to tell, important enough to be your first novel?

Because it was the only kind of story I’d say that made itself amenable to the kind of effects I wanted to achieve with the writing. I wanted to write in a way that I didn’t think many writers in our clime did. I wanted to be a little more experimental with language, and sincerely there weren’t many stories that are amenable to the alchemy of vulgarity, and the earthy tone which I deployed in the style. 

For example, in places where I’d normally have written, “He took off her dress, and had her,” I’d write “He took her dress apart, and b***** the s*** out of her.” Both sentences say the same thing, but the second line had the effects I preferred to create. And frankly, not all stories allow you to do this, because then, these effects have to be organic in a book or they become awkward and insufferable. So for me, the story was important because it allowed me to explore language and style in an atypical way.

Secondly, it was a story that also allowed me the freedom to simply make the book primarily about entertaining the reader. I’ve always felt this was the one true duty of an author, especially in a work of fiction. I did not set out to use the novel to explore some pressing social or moral issues, not that I do not think these are also legitimate themes for a work of fiction, but I just felt I want to be that writer that people read and be like; this s*** is hilarious and entertaining. 

Delving into the story, one is confronted immediately by a first person narrative, by the second chapter, the POV had switched to second person and remained so throughout the rest of the book. Was there a specific reason for this?

Correct. Though, in the ninth chapter, the first person narrative returns, and the tenth chapter-which is the last, it switches back to the second person. I think this goes back to my point about the work not being a conventional book. But coming to your question, the POV style was deliberate. In the first chapter, I wanted to establish to the reader that they are coming on a journey with the author. By the second chapter, I want them to own the journey too; so it reads like the journey is also theirs. If you notice also, the book had lots of datelines at various points. That too was meant to create the effect of a documentary; like the reader is peeping through the author’s personal diary. 

Some people would want to look at this story as an immigrant story others would like to see it as a coming of age story. From what perspective do you see it?

It is a story about many things. I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole it, or pin it down to some of these labels, even though, as an academic, I believe we need labels sometimes for context and clarity. The danger is that it may limit the thematic frames in which readers can view or assess the work. 

But I certainly wasn’t particularly thinking of it as an immigrant story or a coming of age story at the time. Precisely because, although Andre matures, I never saw him as truly coming of age. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but he went from being hyper-excited about women to becoming paranoid about love, and then somewhat resigned about it. He never developed the proclivities of handling commitment, which was why we see that he always reminisced about Rea after each break-up because it was the one time he succeeded in staying committed for long.

Recently though, after giving it more thought, I am getting the sense that the novel, invariably is about dislocation. When we love people, and have great memories about them, and suddenly we have to forcibly leave them, due to relocation or ambition, we are dislocated. And that dislocation persists as long as the memories continue to haunt us. 

So I’ll accept that the book is about migration, but it is also about memory and dislocation. Personally, I came to see memory in a way I’d never thought of before. That memory can be a devastating thing, even when it is good. You could see that because Andre had so many beautiful memories with Rea back in Cyprus, it became a prison, whose walls he couldn’t pull down. Nothing else could measure up to that. For him, nothing in his past could top his time with Rea, everything in his present ranked lower, and he was never confident he would ever be as happy in the future with someone else. People like to think that ugly memories leave us with scars we can’t shake off, but good memories can hurt just as much. We are prisoners to the good times we share with others. We are prisoners to the memories it leaves in the deep recess of our minds. We have to love someone else more, if we are to break out of that prison.    

Did you conceive this as some kind of “guy lit” if you like?

In some way, it could pass for “guy lit”, even though I’m still not a fan of such pigeonholing. I would have to accept that some of the writing sounds like “men’s locker-room talk”, especially when it came to describing the details of a sexual encounter. But I’ll also say, in the work, I consciously attempted to explore sexuality even from a female perspective too. I was fortunate to work with the amazing Jumoke Verrisimo, who helped with the editing, and made me aware of certain female sensibilities. You saw characters like Ivie and Agniezska, who would be a handful for any normal guy, and whom-where they to tell their own stories-would make for a very interesting “girl lit”. But I understand it’s a guy doing the telling this time. Still, it was not conceived as “guy-lit”.

Of all his numerous relationships, the one that seemed to have the biggest impact was that with his first love Adaora. Why do you think that relationship affected him the way it did?

Maybe because it was his first love. First loves aren’t always easy to get over, especially when you haven’t had sex with them. 

While writing this novel, was there any point where you worried that readers might dismiss Andre as skunk? Did this thinking affect your approach to writing the novel?

To an extent, yes. I was concerned that Andre might come off, not just as skunk, but a little too alpha-male, that he might fail to appeal to readers at a deeply emotional level.  In the beginning of the novel, the smugness was there, but as the book progresses, Andre began to acknowledge the fact that he was a flawed person, and he increasingly became vulnerable too. In fact, I think, at some point, it was even easier for women to feel sorry for him than guys. I remember when I had a reading at the Enugu Literary Society, and I read the ending parts of Chapter One where Andre parted ways with Adaora in a high-handed and arrogant fashion. A girl got up and said she did not like me anymore. Of course, I had mentioned earlier in the hall that the novel was semi-autobiographical. So she felt I was unmistakably Andre. I’m sure when she went home and finished the book, she’d have some sympathy for Andre. But then, when I think about it deeply, I didn’t think it was a fear I should’ve had. Women have dealt with me in this life, I tell you. And seeing as the work drew in many ways from my own anxieties about love and longing, I don’t think I was capable of creating a male character that could’ve been a complete d***head.

However, almost after every relationship, your protagonist is always drawn back to Rea, his second love. Why do you think some relationships have such hold on people?

Because, with Rea, he felt a sense of dislocation. They never broke up, remember. Maybe he felt they could’ve been together forever, if they were not finished from uni and were forced to go their separate ways. You’d notice however that Andre was also forced to abandon his relationship with another girl, Kae. But those were under different circumstances. His life was s*** at the time for him. He worked in a bakery and was poorly paid. And these made him struggle emotionally. However, with Rea, life was at its epic best, and their resolve had not been tested by life in an economically-demanding society. Famagusta and London are not comparable by any stretch. So Andre was too nostalgic about his time with Rea in that small Island. It became for him, an obsession and a special prison. 

It has been said numerous times that most first novels have a healthy dose of autobiographical elements in them. Now, I am not asking if this is the case with you and your novel, especially with you and your protagonist having similar backgrounds, like growing up in Nigeria, studying in Cyprus etc. I am just asking if you think this statement is true by and large.

I agree. I think evidence abounds to support the claim. For myself, I’ve noted on many occasions, be it on social media or book readings that my novel is semi-autobiographical. For other writers, the claim is still valid. Chigozie Obioma, for example has said a few times that the family he created in his debut novel, The Fishermen was as large as the family he came from, and he in fact lived and grew up in Akure which was the primary setting of the book. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis has been described as denoting some of the anxieties embedded in his relationship with his own father. If I remember, Junot Diaz’s first and second books draw from his experience as an immigrant from Latin America to the United States. So I agree with the claim, and not just about first novels. In fact, Yuri Modin, in the espionage book, My Five Cambridge Friends, captured my sentiments on this correctly when he said “…in the book he writes, a man has no defence…if one observes carefully, one can uncover the secrets of his soul.” 

You are currently in South Africa. Do you mind sharing with your readers what you are doing there?

I am researching on two very important African philosophers. I’m interrogating the concept of Kwasi Wiredu’s consensus democracy and Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Neo-Welfarism, and whether these ideals offers possibilities for democratic stability in Africa. 

It has often been said that literature from Africans gets to other Africans through mostly the mediation of the West. Do you agree with this? Is there a way to change this?

Unfortunately this is true. I mean, how many Nigerians knew Teju Cole before Open City? But his first book was published by Cassava Republic here in Nigeria. Most of us knew next to nothing about Chigozie Obioma before the review of his book in the New York Times, where he was called the heir to Chinua Achebe. But he already published a handful of stories on different journals before then. We don’t keep track of our writers or care enough about them until the West blows their trumpet. Apart from Flora Nwapa’s debut novel Efuru which was published by Heinemann, her other novels were self-published, but who talks about Flora as much as Chimamanda Adichie? Does being published in Nigeria have something to do with it? Is it a colonial hangover? Or is it that the West simply has a more coordinated publishing architecture that we need to emulate? 

So what do we do? There are lots of things we could do. We can start by appreciating our writers irrespective of where they write from or who promotes them. Making decent art should be enough. Location shouldn’t mediate how we perceive or receive their works. We must wean ourselves from this colonial hangover. And we see this not only in literature but in other spheres of human endeavour. I have a friend, Obinwanne Okeke, who appeared on the cover of Forbes (Africa) in June 2016. He was generously profiled there. They did their checks on him, his business, ran their audits, appreciated his hard work and preached of his talents to the world. Ever since then you’ve had different Nigerian TV and news/tabloids knocking on his door for interviews. But you had this guy right before you for years. He was the same guy. He’s not doing anything new or working any harder than he was working back then, no one back home seemed interested, until a famed magazine in the West profiled him. We seem only interested in our own stars if white people talk about them first. 

So, returning to literature, part of the problem I’d say is also that there aren’t enough book reviews. I think book reviews help the art more than we tend to appreciate. Maybe not much of it is being done, or not much of it is being published. It is one of the ways the West promotes writers, our own African writers inclusive. But then again, I’ve seen people who use literary platforms to settle personal differences (real or imagined), it doesn’t matter how much the art suffers as a result. 

Not long ago, a writer I know told me he reviewed my book and sent to a literary magazine which has some visibility here in Nigeria. Guess what they responded? That it wasn’t relevant content. He couldn’t believe it, and felt so disturbed he had to tell me. So there you go! How do we grow like this? It was a bit disappointing because he said he had some serious criticisms for my book. He offered to send the review to me, but I said, no point. I would have loved others to read it first, not me. The debate about a book shouldn’t be around the author’s feelings but between readers. And then you had a literary magazine rejecting a book review. It couldn’t have been for poor writing, as this writer in question was a very good one.  If tomorrow the New York Times wrote about me, they’d be blowing up my phone seeking an interview. It’s the tragedy of post-colonial Africa. I appreciate the few that are doing something. 

One of the things I love reading in books are the acknowledgement sections where you see the kind of support network a writer draws from. How important would you say your support network has been?

Extremely helpful I’d say. A shame I did not capture all of them in my acknowledgement section as they came along after the book must have been published. I remember how integral Chigozie Obioma was in making me believe more in the book, as he read and offered very instructive suggestions. He really made me feel positive about the work; and for a guy that teaches creative writing in America, that gives you a lift. But so too were the encouragements from people like Uche Peter Umez, and my friend and poet Echezonachukwu Nduka. 

You know, I finished the work, and just set it aside for over a year; because I was doubtful whether it was on its best footing, whether I was ready to show the world that this was the best I could come up with. So these people I mentioned really helped. People like Onyeka Nwelue really was there for me, both as a reference point and a support system. I had Nwilo Bura-Bari who hosted me to a book reading in Port Harcourt. And then there was Ken Ike, who brought me for a reading in Enugu. Ken has promoted literature magnificently in this country. There was Dike Chukwumerije who made arrangements for my reading in Abuja at the end of 2017. Unfortunately I was battling with exhaustion and couldn’t make it. Overall, I count myself fortunate to have all of these guys. I think this type of support network is important, as long as it’s not about gossip and cliquism. Because then, it descends to something unhealthy and destructive.

How did you discover writing or how did writing discover you? Which was it?

I think the fact that I was an Arts student in secondary school helped. At a time, I was taking History, Literature in English, C.R.K, and the likes. So I was encountering a lot of prose without even knowing it. Most times, I came out of my exam halls with very sore fingers, from writing extra sheets. I felt these subjects made me master the art of writing stories. So naturally, I fell in love with stories. In a way, I’d say I discovered writing by becoming accustomed to those habits. 

In your novel, at some point Andre was passing himself off as a “writer or researcher”, which we suspect is the reason a girl walks out on him in the middle of dinner. It sort of echoes the projection of Okwonkwo’s father, the artiste, in Things Fall Apart. Do you think writers have such low currency in the social scene?

Andre had the girl walk-out on him because he was trying to get a high-maintenance girl in Abuja. I think his dinner money would’ve done just fine if he were in some small city like Umuahia or Uyo. 

In any case, I agree that writers in Nigeria have to do other things to pay their bills. It doesn’t sound great, but that’s the case. But then, this isn’t restricted to Nigeria. There’s a current debate in Britain for government to offer financial assistance to writers who can’t pay their bills. Some people also argue that if you’re a good writer, you’d be rich. I guess this is why we all pray to win the NLNG Prize. 

What next from you after this novel?

There’s a book coming out in March this year. It is one of the most important books ever written on the Niger Delta. It’s titled The Unfinished Revolution in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, and published by Routlege. My work features in one of the chapters. 

I am working on a second novel, but this would be quite long in the making. I’m only just starting.