‘I want to make stories out of everything’

Hajara Hussaini Ashara is the runner-up in the Saraba Manuscript Project. The final year law student of Ahmadu Bello University in this interview talks about her journey into writing, how she has ended up writing novels in her notebooks instead of lecture notes, balancing her passion and academic demands and her dreams about how far […]

Hajara Hussaini Ashara is the runner-up in the Saraba Manuscript Project. The final year law student of Ahmadu Bello University in this interview talks about her journey into writing, how she has ended up writing novels in her notebooks instead of lecture notes, balancing her passion and academic demands and her dreams about how far she hopes writing takes her

You recently emerged runner up in the Saraba Manuscript Project. How do you feel about it?
I feel ecstatic. It feels almost unbelievable that I got that far, I had never thought that my writing would be given such credence. Despite not being the winner, it’s a dream come true. I have caught myself doubting the reality of the whole thing several times, it is just so amazing that my work will be produced in book form and most importantly that so many people will be able to read what I have written. This is the hallmark of being a runner up for me, the joy that I’d be read and read widely.
How important was it for you to have been shortlisted for the prize?
Making the longlist was completely overwhelming and the shortlist just made it seem so surreal. It was like I was in this dream where anything was possible, anything that would make me happy inspite of all the sadness that could surround me. It was important to me first because it brought me happiness and a strange sense of fulfilment. Strange because I hadn’t (and probably still haven’t) fully understood the impact of my writings. It serves as a validation of my ability to write. It reminded me of my responsibility as a writer. I had decided to stop writing for a while because I felt it was becoming increasingly difficult to combine it with other things that were going on in my life like school, like my mental capacity and relationship with others. Emerging runner up was, is like a revelation from God that I could, can still do it, combine writing with life because my life would just be so incomplete without it.
What made you decide to enter the competition?
It is actually a very astonishing story. I had subscribed to Saraba Magazine Newsletters via email so when the Project was announced I got an email informing me about it which I instantly discarded. It would take months of forgetfulness because I had completely forgotten about the Project until close to the deadline for submissions of entries. I had this collection of short stories that I had written in 2012/2013 and I didn’t just know what to do with it. Then the thought hit me that I should enter it and I did. It was almost impulsive, after I sent an entry I totally forgot about it because I didn’t think it was good enough.
What has been your greatest influence as a writer?
My relationship with the world and this includes people, strangely. I usually want to make stories out of everything, I believe there are stories in everything. And I see myself as an invisible observer so this makes it easy for me to write about people. My relationship with myself is another big influence because I am quiet and secretive, writing serves as a means of communicating with other people and myself. When I’m hurt about something I feel relieved after writing like when someone wants me to marry someone I don’t love or agree to something I’d rather not agree to there’s this gnawing feeling that overtakes me, my words feel stuck in my mouth and become hard to swallow. They transport themselves back to my mind and force my hand to write them down.
How long have you been writing? What was the moment that convinced you you wanted to be a writer?
I love to believe that I have been writing since age 6, it could be earlier or later, I didn’t really keep track of my age and actions then. My father is the greatest book lover I have ever lived with and this love he instilled in me from an early age. He bought me  books whenever he travelled and among these books were children’s story books and after reading he would have me write out the lessons I had learnt from each one. From there I began to write my own versions of these stories; Cinderella became for me The Wicked Stepmother, and I had others like The Golden Egg. I think for me that was the moment I decided I’d write. It was something that was going to be a part of me forever because I never listed it down with other professions I had considered in my childhood. It was something I saw and still see as a gift, something that would enhance my pursuit of other important things.
Where did your love for writing come from?
Aside my father’s influence, I read my first real novel in my early adolescence. It was Jean Sasson’s ‘Daughters of Arabia’, my father’s copy. And I fell completely in love with writing. It amazed me that someone could write about all that. And the power in the words and story overwhelmed me so that I was fascinated by the way it controlled my mind, making me believe completely in the reality of those words and the different worlds they created. It exposed me to another way of expressing my thoughts and another way of understanding people and the world. It was just fantastically incredible, and I wanted and still want people to experience that miracle through my imagination.
Considering that you are a student, how often do you find the time to write and how?
Writing had always come easy for me from the start, with my father asking me to read and rewrite and me always making out time to write from primary to secondary schools. The problem came in univeristy where I have been cajoled by fate to study a course I have no passion for. In my first year, I wrote while lectures went on. I’d turn to the last page of my notebook and write poems and stories. In my second year I wrote a novel. It was so bad that my school notebook had to be replaced because it was filled with my “fictitious” writings. My second year was also very challenging. It was the year that I had decided to do well in both my course of study and writing. However at the end of that year I had a complete novel of over 65, 000 words and a carryover of my then favourite course (Constitutional Law). I was devastated and lost hope in school, slowly my hope in writing was slipping away too. By my fourth year, I was barely writing, my struggle with school became more obvious and mentally exhausting. I still barely write but I think I’m coming to terms with who I am and this is making it easy for me to embrace the writer in me.
Did writing in English come to you naturally or were you ever tempted to write in another language, say Hausa for instance?
It has always been easy in English. I express myself better in English. So English came naturally, Hausa isn’t my mother tongue. I do not like speaking it because of my accent but to an extent I am better at writing it, terrible at reading it but hopeful that I’ll get better at speaking it. And of course I’m tempted to write in a language other than English but I’d have to learn and the process of learning is arduous especially at this stage of my life, it would have been easier if I was still a girl of two to five.
If you will spend two months in a desert, what five books will you take?
Amin Maalouf’s Leo Africanus (Leo, the African), Jean Sasson’s The Princess Trilogy, Nadeem Aslam’s ‘Maps for Lost Lovers’, ‘No Longer At Ease’ by Chinua Achebe and ‘Waiting for An Angel’ by Helon Habila.