Writing inspiration is akin to being pregnant – Dr Isiak Aliaga

Can you tell us something about your background? I was born in the coastal city of Douala in Southern Cameroun. My parents were traders in that country. They migrated there after spending some years trading in the eastern Nigerian cities of Aba, Onitsha and Calabar before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war. My father […]

Can you tell us something about your background?

I was born in the coastal city of Douala in Southern Cameroun. My parents were traders in that country. They migrated there after spending some years trading in the eastern Nigerian cities of Aba, Onitsha and Calabar before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war. My father traded in cow hides while my mother was engaged in petty trading among some banking institutions in Doula. I had a cosmopolitan upbringing. The first seven years of my life were spent in Doula and the next six years in Ikare-Akoko, Ondo State. Since then, I have moved from Kwara to Kano and later Lagos in the course of my educational career. The places I have lived, schooled and worked shaped my life and they have significant bearing on my literary works. You could describe me as a cosmopolitan writer or a writer without border. My life shapes what I produce. There are things that I write and you wonder if they actually come from me. This has to do with the different cultures and lifestyles within which I grew up.

Can you tell us about your works of art?

I have done some ten or more works of art, including single, co-authored or edited works. My first outing as a literary writer was in 1988 when still a student at the Bayero University in Kano. My poems appeared in an anthology of the Association of Nigerian Authors titled Voices from the Fringe edited by Harry Garuba. It was a big plus for me and it galvanized me into a career in literary art. Since then, it has been seasons of harvests for me. The next single work of poetry I did, Cadence, came out in 1997;Emissary of Joy (poetry) in 1999; The Scars of the Moon, short story collection, 2000; a children fiction, Akeju, the Pampered Boy, 2003; Oba Mama (play) 2003; Stories from the Qur’an (co-authored) 2003; and two edited anthologies by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Kwara State Chapter, Echoes and Voices from the Midland,2003 and Symphony of Harmony co-edited with Iyzuchukwu Okeke, 2009. I have four new works ready for publishing, An Old Man and his Son & other Stories (children fiction); Women’s War (play); Olubu (play to be released by Kraftbooks in October); Rusting Times (play) and a short story collection nearing completion. I am doing more of plays now and seem to have turned away from poetry which has limited patronage except among the academia and among initiates of the cult of poesy. I still write poetry though, but not as often as before.

What inspired you to become a writer?

A writer is born a writer. When the gene is in you, you have no control over it. When you are overwhelmed by the muse, you look for means of expressing the feelings and the inspiration. Many have the creative instincts but only a few are able to grow it and come up with works that appeal to those exposed to them. I grew up in an environment that appreciated and promoted the native lore and traditions. The environment influenced learning. It was an environment that cherished story-telling and customs and traditions that were enveloped in festivals and performances. Some of these were replicated in the school environment. I also grew up to love reading story books. I found myself feeling that if those stories were written by men, I could do the same when I grow up. So, the feeling had been there since my younger days. So, when I became matured emotionally and had sharpened the tools of expressing my feelings in words, it became a pastime. Writing is a leisure to me; something that makes me happy. Hence, every literary harvest is like the birth of a human, a new creation, a new life, a new people and community. I have models too that I look up to, literary giants whom I aspire to become like.

Who are these literary giants?

They include the late South African anti-apartheid poet, Dennis Brutus, the late philosopher, poet statesman, Leopold Sedar Senghor and of course the great romantic poet, William Wordsworth. Others like J.P. Clark, Ola Rotimi and of course the great wordsmith, Wole Soyinka and the master story teller, Chinua Achebe. Ahmed Yerima among others, also have significant influence on my dramatic works.

What impacts have your creative works made in the society?

Every creative work has a message it intends to pass. The work of any writer is an interpretation of how that writer sees the society. And like messages targeted at a mass audience, works of art could fulfill any of the key roles of communication, educating, informing or entertaining. I believe all works of art perform these roles. Each work of art therefore, has its central theme. It tries to evoke the consciousness of the people on certain things happening in the society. Certain personalities and events are created to convey certain messages. Certain conflicting situations are created and resolved based on how the writer sees them. My works therefore, conform to these situations. They offer a critique on the way we live, the way we do things and why things don’t go the way we expect. The works also throw up some moral questions and they provoke our sense of reasoning. Each of them has a philosophical foundation and a central message that are germane to resolving some of the problems confronting us as a people. For a work of art to be relevant to the age in which it is produced, it must address the problem of that period. My creative works fulfill this basic requirement.

You have been an educationist, an author, analyst, lecturer, journalist, poet and public relations practitioner; how do you combine all these with writing?

Writing is inspired by an impulse. When you are taken over by the muse, you are like someone who is pregnant and when a pregnancy reaches its time of delivery, you have no option than to deliver it. However, like pregnancy, not all inspirations are successfully delivered; some are aborted, others are stillborn either by deliberate choice or by circumstances beyond one’s control. In the course of one’s work which entails being busy all the time, there is no doubt that one’s creative writings will suffer some setback. There are times one has to deliberately abort an inspiration so that it does not conflict with one’s primary work. However, there are times for everything. I create time for my creative writing. Writing forms part of my leisure and I do enjoy whenever I am in the course of creative writing. I could keep a story in my head for as long as it takes me to put it on paper. It could be months, it could be years. I could reproduce it anytime I want.