Writers must be faithful to rhythms of language – Maja-Pearce

Bookshelf: How do you view literature now compared to what obtained during your time? Adewale Maja-Pearce: People have talked about a renaissance and I believe they are absolutely right. The emergence of multiple talents in the last few years has been astounding and I celebrate it. Needless to say, their concerns are different from those […]

Bookshelf: How do you view literature now compared to what obtained during your time?
Adewale Maja-Pearce: People have talked about a renaissance and I believe they are absolutely right. The emergence of multiple talents in the last few years has been astounding and I celebrate it. Needless to say, their concerns are different from those of previous generations, however defined, but that is as it should be. Nigeria is a very different place now. That said I have followed the concerns of some that much of this literature continues to be published – and therefore edited – abroad, where it is mostly read. We see this particularly in the use of dialogue, notably Pidgin, and in the apparent need to italicise words like ‘akara’ and ‘moin-moin’ – and then proceed to explain what they mean and we haven’t even got to ‘follow-come.’ I believe these are real concerns. Literature is a matter of language before it is anything else. The writer must be faithful to the rhythms of the language as it is spoken, so to say. It’s possible of course to write about a country from exile but it’s a rare talent that must do so and one must be wary of invoking examples.
Bookshelf: The Heinemann African Writers Series is now publishing only its classics. How would you say its inactivity in the area of publishing under the AWS has affected African literature in general and Nigeria in particular?
Maja-Pearce: The AWS was good for its time but for how long should a continent’s literature, the whole of Africa, be published out of the United Kingdom? No, let us build up our own publishing industry, which is what is happening. I might mention Farafina or Kachifo, Cassava Republic, Parresia and, dare I say, The New Gong.
Bookshelf: You have written several remarkable books and have never stopped writing. What is the secret?
Maja-Pearce: I would say an uneasy mix of necessity and ambition. One has to earn a living, after all, and who knows, I might yet write that ‘remarkable’ book which will leave the world stupefied. Until then, however…
Bookshelf: Your most recent book, a memoir, ‘The House My Father Built,’ was about your struggle to reclaim what is legally yours. What did it take for you to share such an experience with the world?
Maja-Pearce: I have always been interested in what is now called creative non-fiction, although I believe that prose is prose. The point is to tell a story that speaks to another human being. My experience of reclaiming my inheritance taught me a lot about the Nigeria I had come to try and make my way in. I spent six years during (Late General Sani) Abacha’s reign going from court to police station to lawyers’ offices and almost got killed in the process of meeting an extraordinary range of people with all sorts of motives. Throw in juju, well, you get the picture.
Bookshelf: Some writers are not that eager to share such experiences. What did you hope to achieve?
Maja-Pearce: To tell a story about one man’s journey back to his fatherland at a particularly savage time in the country’s history, in the process finding out something about myself and this awkward entity called Nigeria. 
Bookshelf: Your honesty in the account was intense, especially when you were told by a Lebanese that you are lucky to have taken after your mother’s looks. How has being half British influenced your writing and life in general?
Maja-Pearce: Authenticity in literature comes from being as honest as you can about yourself in the world. As for being perceived as ‘Oyibo;’ it’s just part of my fate. I used to fret about it but not anymore. Certainly, it has a lot of advantages in Nigeria, as the Lebanese fellow cynically observed, but not necessarily in healthy ways. I’m not interested in trading in a commodity – my presumed Oyibo-ness, complete with English accent – based on the perceptions of others, which is unhealthy.
Bookshelf: You have been holding a series of workshops for a while now, with one scheduled to take place in Lagos. How has it been so far?
Maja Pearce: Yes, I hold a four-hour, one-on-one workshop on selected Saturdays here in my Surulere, Lagos office. The bulk of the time is spent critiquing the writer’s work which I would have read in advance. The writer then follows up with a fresh piece of writing which we discuss at a later date.
Bookshelf: What observation have you made about today’s crop of Nigerian writers? To what extent do you think they have succeeded, or not, in impacting the country and the world?
Maja-Pearce: As I said earlier, it’s great. The more the merrier. For all our failures as a country frequently described as too rich to be poor, our artists have done us proud. And all our artists: painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, comedians, along with the writers, who have between them won more international prizes than writers from any other English-language Commonwealth country. As for impacting the country, to say nothing of the world that is not the function of literature, although nothing stops the individual writer from exercising their civic obligations. My own self-declared duty is to be a local councillor on the ticket of Kowa Party.
Bookshelf: What is your view about Nigeria’s lack of an MFA in Creative Writing?
Maja-Pearce: I have no strong views about it either way, although I doubt their value. In my experience, you write because you fell in love with books, which are your teachers. Besides, creating something new is, by definition, not teachable. On the other hand, they do no harm and furnish a few writers with a steady income. Actually, I think such posts should be reserved for poets. Prose writers should take their chances in the world they are writing about.
Bookshelf: What are you writing at the moment?
Maja-Pearce: I’m working up to another book, but still stalking it so…