Why I can’t be a full-time writer – Lola Shoneyin

I am very excited because I have always wanted my book to be released in Nigeria because Nigerians are my primary audience. So I’m glad it’s finally here. It has come out in the US and the UK and next year it will come out in Dutch and in Hebrew so I am most excited […]

I am very excited because I have always wanted my book to be released in Nigeria because Nigerians are my primary audience. So I’m glad it’s finally here. It has come out in the US and the UK and next year it will come out in Dutch and in Hebrew so I am most excited that it is finally here in Nigeria.

Why is the publishing trend following the pattern of books being published abroad before they are published in Nigeria?

I think the original plan was for this one [the Nigerian edition] to come out first but there were all sorts of encumbrances with publishing in Nigeria, one of them was that to get the quality that you want, you often have to go and print outside given the high cost of diesel and trying to run a printing press. So that, among other things, has meant that it has come later than expected. There were always unforeseen situations because my book was stuck at a port in India for months because of a huge oil spill. So that’s my situation that I can speak of. I know that other authors whose books were supposed to come out a lot earlier than they actually did but that’s the price we have to pay when there are so many things we can’t do in our country.

You have been asked this before I’m sure but tell us what inspired this story?

When I was 14 years old, my brother was dating this girl called Anne. She was a house officer at the UCH (University College Hospital), Ibadan and very often she would come to our house. I loved her stories about mixing the blood, the gore and the operations and strange medical conditions and I would always ask her what’s the latest. On this particular day, she told me she had forgotten to tell me that two weeks before, a particular man, an Igbo man, a spare parts dealer, had brought his wife to the hospital screaming, ‘She’s barren, her womb is dead, she can’t give birth!’ so they commenced a medical examination. And by the time Anne was telling me the story, they had got the results and she was saying how devastating the results were for the entire family. I was 14 but the story struck me and I wanted to tell it because I thought it was a brilliant story on so many levels.

I’ve always viewed polygamy as being an institution that dehumanises women. That was what I came to believe as I was growing up and had more exposure to it. So in a way, I guess there was a part of me that thought this is a beautiful story, this is women empowering themselves and I wanted to write about it. This isn’t my first novel. I have written two novels which I couldn’t find a publisher for when I was living in the UK. This novel (Baba Segi) I had wanted to write as a play because there was an opportunity for dramatic flair but I thought I wanted to start a new project after I couldn’t get a publisher for my first novel.

So what did you think you did right with this one that you didn’t do with the others?

The first one, Fertility Nails, which is what I called it, I guess I was still trying to find my feet so I don’t really regard that as a really publishable work. Regardless, that was my first attempt at writing a full length novel. Harlot, I was very disappointed when I couldn’t find a publishing house for it because I put so much into it and did so many re-writes but looking at it now, I could see exactly what went wrong. I was trying to merge two stories together and one of them was very well rounded, very complex, very intriguing but I had real problems writing the other character. It wasn’t convincing. So I guess I didn’t do it properly. But by the time I was writing this one (Baba Segi) I had a lot more experience and I think I had an incredible story, a story that I think is very important that it’s told.

Do you plan to rework Harlot?

My husband says I should, he says it should be my second novel. I might but I have another idea I am getting on with at the moment. I get bored easily so I need to move on as soon as I can. So I’ve got an idea now that I absolutely love and I’m staying with it.

So we should expect something new, completely different from this?

Certainly, certainly. It’s based on real life situations in the life of children. We don’t have a lot of YA novels, novels for young adults, between the ages of 14 and 17, so I want to write for them because I’m a teacher, I interact with them.

Why do you think this critical reading sector has been overlooked?

I don’t know, I don’t think that’s an area we have really looked into. We had the Pacesetters of course, which I read a lot of, and there was Jaguar Nana. There were some books that were written for the sector but somehow, people stopped reading for pleasure because that’s the age they started reading for their O-Levels. It became more of an academic exercise and kids started reading less because if you are reading, it has to be something that you had to read. But I interact with them a lot and I am getting into their minds. I thought it would be an interesting experiment.

Let’s talk about Baba Segi’s Wives; have you been surprised by the reception the book has got so far?

Well, I haven’t been disappointed at all. It has been really well received and every book store I visit I would often ask where is the book and they would say we are sold out, it’s going so quickly and it would give me so much joy to say; I’m actually the author, I wrote that book.Why do you think it’s going that quickly?

I think it’s a story that people are interested in and also the suspense. It should have come out earlier and it didn’t and the more people heard about, read the reviews from the UK and the US, that already generated interest and they would contact me or the publishers asking; Where is the book? We want to buy it.

Do you think it’s because it’s a kind of anti-establishment thing that people are rushing to see what it’s all about?

(Laughs) why do you say that?

Well, because polygamy is generally the norm and you are writing something against that institution. Don’t you think it’s because you are writing against the norm that the book is generating so much attention?

Well, I guess people are interested and the title is quite intriguing, people have told me, and I liked it when I thought it up because it told you just enough about the book to rouse curiosity, so I think that’s worked very well. It could also be that people want to read about polygamy and you say I’m writing against it, well I guess I am but it’s also more descriptive, it’s more saying this is a picture of polygamy well, you choose if this is the kind of institution you want to get into. And a lot of people have told me that they grew up in polygamous family and would like to read about it, they are curious to see if I would represent at properly, if I would describe it accurately especially within the Yorubas and I’ve been surprised. People have been saying this is exactly the way it was in our house.

And this coming from one who didn’t grow up in a polygamous home?

My grandparents were polygamous…

Aren’t you far removed from your grandparents?

No, no, I grew up hearing stories about polygamy. In secondary school, my best friend, her father married a second wife and I could see how it really damaged her and how consumed she became with that episode in their lives because obviously she was very much on her mother’s side and this was an unexpected occurrence in their lives so it was quite an upheaval. And apart from that, even at the university, meeting and getting to know people who had opted to be second, third or fourth wife, it was quite interesting to me. You know, 33 percent of Nigerian women are in polygynous relationships. That’s a third. You can’t get away from it in Nigeria. And it’s been very surprising that many people in my generation have decided that that’s the way they want to go.

You were educated in the UK, you have been living there; don’t you feel that your background pits you against this practice as compared to those who have been struggling here?

Actually, no because sometimes, even though I have the insider experience through my parents, I think looking at it from the outside has helped a lot because it allows you to be completely objective, it allows you to pull together everything that you know even though you haven’t actually lived it. So, that was quite valuable to me and if my background has pitted me against polygamy then I’m quite glad it did because I have seen what polygamy does to women, especially the first wife who didn’t sign up for it.

Why do you think that female writers always have to answer questions about feminism?

I think the journalists haven’t got the kind of answers they should get from these women.

What kind of answers should they get?

I don’t know. I think most people shy away from being labelled feminist. I realise that about a lot of female authors, they don’t want to be classified as feminist. I am a complete feminist through and through. I have nothing but adoration and respect and concern for my fellow women. It has nothing to do with hating men; it has everything to do with loving womanhood. Loving womanhood includes motherhood, wifehood, just being a partner; all the things that concern women. That’s what being a feminist means. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, people seem to think it’s about hating men; it’s not.

So what will you say to those who read your book and think the masculine voice has been suppressed? Baba Segi is a key character but his presence is not felt all that much.

His presence is felt. Don’t forget, without Baba Segi, there would be no wives. The whole book centres on Baba Segi and the family that he has put together. He does have a prominent voice. You find that in all the places that I used the third person narrative, he’s around there somewhere. He has his own chapters where he speaks with his own voice as well. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is about strength. I think a lot of it is about the strength that women have inspite of everything that they go through; they will go to extreme lengths to survive which is something that you find with every Nigerian woman. Some of them are being abused, they would trudge on. Baba Seg is important as a character but in this story, I really wanted to focus on the women.

The idea for this story came to you quite early, when you were just 14. You took your time and mulled over it but most writers now rush into publishing their works. What’s pushing them?

People rush into publishing because the system has broken down completely. We have a broken down publishing establishment. We are lucky that we have publishers like New Age Publisher, Cassava Republic, Farafina, Dada Books coming through and trying to reinvent publishing and thinking of ways to bring quality books to people at affordable prizes. It’s laudable. But what normally happens is that people can’t find publishers. All these publishers get loads of manuscripts that they can’t manage and when they reject them, what happens is that the writer now goes, I can’t find home for my work so I’m going to publish it. But what they miss in self-publishing is the whole editorial process that some of the publishing houses in Nigeria and all the publishing houses in the UK have. Some of these processes take six months. A good editor tells you what changes need to be made. I was lucky I had a Nigerian editor, a UK editor and a US editor and I was listening to all of them at the same time and trying to work with the advice that they are giving. So this process is completely missing. Some of the books coming out now are completely riddled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and it’s because they haven’t been through the mills. There are loads of talents in this country but they are not able to find a system that will absorb them and give the support that they need. That is the tragedy of this country because in 20 years time we are going to wake up and find that there is a huge gap in publishing. The variety is not there. A lot of the books published now are books that have been published abroad. “I Do Not Come to You by chance” was accepted there, let publish it here, Baba Segi is coming out there, let’s publish it here, Adichie… you know, that’s what’s happening and it’s so sad. It’s like we are not generating new talents. This is an area I’m so concerned about.

You mentioned books being published abroad before coming down here. In essence we are waiting for…

(Cuts `in) …validation and it’s so disgusting. Look at India for instance. I can’t be a full time writer much as I want to. I don’t know a lot of people in my generation who can afford to. Everyone has to look for something to support himself. In India, you find a lot of full time writers, people who write and sell hundreds of millions of copies; they can live on their royalties. We can’t do that here. Sometimes publishers can barely sell 2, 000. We don’t even have a proper creative writing prize, not even an MA (Master of Arts). Where are people supposed to turn to?

You mentioned prizes. Elechi Amadi said that all these foreign prizes are usually given to those whose writings fall in line with the thinking of the awards body. What do you think about that?

That’s not always the case. I mean, look at Ben Okri, The Famished Road. Could anything be farther away from what the judges have in mind? Even Chimamanda, her work is really grounded in Nigeria. What happens is that most of us, when you go over there, you walk through everything that’s in your memory and you start calling people, you know this thing, can you remind me? We all write about home. We all write about Nigeria.