‘I like to introduce readers to worlds they don’t know’

Bookshelf: Your latest novel ‘Guardians of the Seal’ was published in 2016. What triggered the story? Tunde Leye: A couple of things usually come together to start a story. So for ‘Guardians of the Seal’ for example, it includes my love for superheroes, especially the Japanese flavour known as Manga. You’ll see elements of those […]

Bookshelf: Your latest novel ‘Guardians of the Seal’ was published in 2016. What triggered the story?

Tunde Leye: A couple of things usually come together to start a story. So for ‘Guardians of the Seal’ for example, it includes my love for superheroes, especially the Japanese flavour known as Manga. You’ll see elements of those in the story. A friend of mine and I also had a conversation that formed part of the trigger. I read a lot of fantasy and was re-reading Tolkein’s books at the time, so it all came together. 

Bookshelf: The story is steeped in Christian mythology. Was this an important decision before you started the work?

Leye: It was, yes. In fact, in the original version, there were six chapters that built the world of the book in depth by extending stories from Christian mythology. We eventually cut those out but if we get around to releasing hardback extended versions of the book, we might just put it back in. The story was essentially me reimaging the world within a Christian mythology that had magic present.

Bookshelf: What did it take to develop your central character, ‘Lucan’? 

Leye: There were two central characters who were also love interests, Lucan and Imani. They were both representations of different concepts from Christian mythology. For example, Imani is the seed of the woman and was born without a man, a parallel of the way Christ is the seed of the woman and with virgin birth.

Bookshelf: You have evolved from the author of an illustrated children’s book titled ‘The Rat Race’ to a novelist. Why did you decide to write for children in the first place?

Leye: Evolution isn’t the word. Expression I think is a better description for the different stories I’ve written. I’ve written children’s books, romance, thriller, comedy, satire, fantasy and even biography. But yes, I have a special place in my heart for children’s stories, because of how the love for reading formed in my own mind when I was a child and entered the magical worlds that Enid Blyton introduced me to.

Bookshelf: In the story rats are taught how to run all their lives in order to get cheese, yet one of them dares to find out why the owner of the cheese never runs, yet gets cheese. What were you trying to teach children? 

Leye: ‘The Rat Race’ is representative of our own society where children are born, sent to school, taught not to ask deep questions that change the status quo, aspire for a job and essentially, survive. But Yaro, the hero of the story, chose a different path and questioned everything. In doing so, he changed his world. You see, we kill the questions in our children when we don’t answer them or teach them how to seek answers for themselves. ‘The Rat Race’ shows them that they should not let their questions be killed; that they can be heroes like Yaro.

Bookshelf: Children are having a hard time choosing between interesting books and television, games and so on. How is ‘The Rat Race’ being received by kids? Can you give an update?

Leye: It’s been very well received. I have toured schools and met children who love reading and have written wonderful stories of their own. Some were encouraged after reading ‘The Rat Race’ and seeing that the writer is a Nigerian like them. I’m fully confident that we have a new generation of writers in those kids that will tell stories that are both Nigerian and global at the same time.

Bookshelf: You have explored different genres in your work. Your second book ‘Golden Sands’ is a crime fiction where many deaths lead to a conspiracy theory that threatens to bring down people in high places. Did you draw inspiration for this from any particular event in Nigeria? 

Leye: One of the things I like to do with my writing is get people thinking-could that have happened? What if it happened? So while it takes elements from our history, ‘Golden Sands’ is fiction. 

Bookshelf: What do you usually aim to achieve when you write? 

Leye: To tell a compelling story that will entertain the reader and which they’ll be unable to drop until they finish reading. Also to stimulate their minds and get them racing to Google and their libraries to discover things they never knew and introduce them to worlds they never knew existed.

Bookshelf: Between 2012 and 2014, you published a series of stories on your blog that earned it massive traffic running to about two million views. What was the experience like, working on the series and also having readers wait for every new episode? 

Leye: It was a very rewarding experience on many levels. First, it was an experiment to circumvent the gatekeepers who have established themselves within the Nigerian literary space as filters of creativity and deliver the stories I wanted to tell directly to readers. It was also a way to prove that contrary to what many people say otherwise, Nigerians love to read, if the story interests them enough. I think it is the responsibility of the writing industry to create those stories and find ways to distribute to the readers and it was what I aimed to do with the blog. After seven series spanning three years of writing every week, I thought it was time to move on from that. I’m glad it inspired and encouraged many others to use blogs to tell their stories since then and many of these writers have gone on to publish their own books and write for TV and film.

Bookshelf: Every blogger probably dreams about achieving what you have, a massive following. Was it always this way from the beginning? 

Leye: I like that my blogging experience encouraged others to try it, in spite of the countless rejections they got from traditional Nigerian publishers, and they have gone on to do great things. An example that’s dear to me is Tomi Adesina, whose film, ‘Hakkunde’, comes out very soon. Beyond writing and publishing my own books, it is stories like this that make it even more worthwhile. 

Bookshelf: Here you are, a graduate of Computer Science steeped in the arts. Do you have anything to do with your course of study these days? Why did you study Computer Science? 

Leye: I have a day job in payments, which has its basis in computing. I think human beings are complex enough to have varied and multiple interests. I actually love payments and whilst I didn’t know much about it back then, it was obvious to me that computers held the future, so I chose the course.

Bookshelf: What are you working on at the moment, literary-wise? 

Leye: I just put out a short story based on the life of a Dahomey Amazon, ‘The Ahosi’. I might be developing it into a full book. I have already laid out the plot and characters for this other book, which will be more of a young adult fantasy type.