I began writing to imitate people I read – Femi Osofisan

Weekend Magazine: Earlier this year you became the first African to win the coveted Thalia prize. Were you expecting it?  Professor Femi Osofisan: No. Although Iwas a runner up two years ago, I wasn’t expecting it. WM: How did you feel?  Osofisan: I was very happy that an African was winning it for the first […]

Weekend Magazine: Earlier this year you became the first African to win the coveted Thalia prize. Were you expecting it? 

Professor Femi Osofisan: No. Although Iwas a runner up two years ago, I wasn’t expecting it.

WM: How did you feel? 

Osofisan: I was very happy that an African was winning it for the first time.

WM: Do you foresee another African winning the prize?

Osofisan: Why not? This is what I said in my speech, that Africa is not yet known and so I’m hoping that with a prize like that; Africa will get more and more prominent. My complain each time, has always been the absence of Africa. We are marginalized. Now with this prize, I hope Africa will get more recognition. Shortly before the prize, I was also made a member of the editorial board of the association’s online newsletter. Again we are preparing an African edition. So it is important that an African won this prize. And don’t forget, the month before that, I was honoured in Cairo among a group of six from all over the world. 

WM: For what were you honoured in Cairo?

Osofisan: It is an important annual festival that runs in Cairo. We don’t know much about it here in Nigeria. But the International Festival of Contemporary and Experimental Theatre and I have been running for years. They decided to honour six literary icons from all over the world and I was surprised that I was one of those who got that prize. This is important for Nigerian theatre. The award wasn’t called anything.  I don’t even know how I was nominated or the procedure. 

WM: You are a poet, playwright and a novelist. How do you manage being all these?

Osofisan: It’s not such a Pontius thing. There are things I write that demand prose or drama. Poetry for me has always been a personal experience. So when I want to express things that hurt me deeply or those I am passionate about I write that in poetry, but when I’m dealing with social political issues and want to reach as many people as possible it comes in form of a journal. Also, because we live in a country where there is crisis all the time, I am more open to drama. We are trying to create a new type of Africa theatre.

WM: What usually informs your themes?

Osofisan: As I said, with drama it’s usually the political crisis and social issues that are going on and also for prose. I was one of those who founded The Guardian newspaper and we emphasized very much on literally issues because I wanted us to diversify and show that it is not just about politics, but that there are other things happening. There is this misconception that if people are not in politics they are not important and it’s not right. There are people who are doctors and engineers, who are inventing things to help society develop, yet we don’t give them prominence. I think that is part of our problem in this country. Nowadays there are technologies like the internet and all these smart phones. But before there was a problem with the kind of education we had, which was with the language itself – when people are writing in English and most people don’t speak English. It is important to find ways of encouraging literacy and it occurred to me at one point that books are being written and people are not reading, yet readership of newspapers was spreading and many people are reading magazines. So I thought if people will not go to literature, can literature not go to them? Why not use the media that people like and put our stories? So that’s why I developed the series in the newspapers which I called ‘Tales that the country told me.’

WM: How did you start writing?

Osofisan: Well, it’s difficult to say how I started writing. I think I was fortunate that I went to the right school and also perhaps my background. I came from a poor family so that meant there were fewer distractions which children from rich families had at home. The library became a kind of succour. In Government College Ibadan there was a good library and good teachers. This encouraged us to read. And if you read, more or less, you will write. So it led me to writing. Much later writing became an important career because at the beginning we were just writing for fun to imitate the people we read.

WM: How challenging was it writing your very first book?

Osofisan: That’s very difficult to say. I am not sure whether I set out consciously to write the first book. Nowadays I get confused; I don’t know which one was first published, whether it was the play or the novel. The first to win an award was the poetry ‘The minted points.’ I think that was more or less through the encouragement of the editor who put the book together and published it, and then the plays and novels followed.

WM: What was the most difficult work you have had to write?

Osifosan: Well, I haven’t really thought about that. Each work is always different. 

WM: For young people who have understudied you, what gives you the most satisfaction about their performance?

Osofisan: One is always happy when they achieve something, be it an employment or a production that is very good. I am always happy at their success.

WM: Why do you think prize wins are always prose and not of plays. Do you foresee a time when this will change?

Osofisan: As far as I am concerned, they all stand together. The thing about prose is that you can pick it up and read it by yourself. With the play, you only get half of the experience when you read it and miss a lot. Obviously the prose has the advantage because it was written to be read while a play has to be performed. So a judge has to find a balance.

WM: What final word do you have for budding writers?

Osofisan: I have always given the same advice. The only way to write is by writing. If you want to write, do so, and if you want to write more, read. The more you read, the more you write. I am a bit worried that a lot of our younger people just want to rush to print. If you read Ibrahim (Abubakar Adam Ibrahim) you will know that there is a lot of reading background. Unfortunately you see younger writers who say, I don’t write like anybody, I am just a genius and nobody has influenced me. So you have a lot of writing but little reading, therefore there is a lot of rubbish being produced. So if you want to write, read well and write well. By reading, you learn from those who are good-you learn style, you learn use of language which is even the major thing. Whatever language you are using, you must master that language. It is very important.