Reginald Chiedu Ofodile is a playwright, novelist and legal practitioner. He is based in Onitsha, Anambra State. In this interaction with Edozie Udeze he talks about his works during this pandemic and why writers should use this period of isolation to be more productive and assertive

Reginald Chiedu Ofodile is an award winning author.  He is also a screen writer, dramatist and legal practitioner.  He has somewhat abandoned his legal profession for writing where he has proved his mettle over the years.  He thinks this is the moment for artists to show the stuff they are made.

For him he said “I’ve found that notion to be absolutely true.  We draw our inspiration and materials from the world.  However, I find the creative process works best in isolation.  When I work, I crave solitude.  I strive to be detached from the world.  I think the greater the isolation, the deeper the writer’s absorption, and the more profound the yield.  However, I can only speak for myself.  Perhaps some creative writers can produce qualitative work in company.  The late Maya Angelou wrote that she kept a room in a motel, where she used to lock herself in to write.

Covid 19 has reinforced my earlier conviction that isolation benefits a creative writer.  It has given me lessons in patience, and sometimes, resignation!  Some tasks I wished to complete, or goals I longed to pursue, had to be postponed or abandoned.

I’ve written a poem, A  GIFT  TO  ART, inspired by Covid-19, urging artists to be optimism and productivity.   I have other pieces of creative writing about Covid-19 emerging.  None of these, however, portray conspiracy theories.  They reflect the experience, the human reactions to the menace.

Art is preeminent in my life.  The two disciplines are not clashing.  What occurs is akin to the process that biologists term ‘mutualism.’  Each discipline enriches the other.  I am not currently practising law.  I engage in legal research and writing, as some of my novels and plays feature lawyers, court hearings, and legal processes. Over the last four months, I’ve written five short stories, a one-act play, poetry, part of a novel, and ideas for other works.  (you may find this underlined sentence superfluous, suggestive of bragging.  If so, please delete it) As I stated above, art commands primacy in my life.  In childhood, I continually drew and painted.  I also loved reciting and performing.    Then I became immersed in story books, and later novels, biographies and plays.  I made my first attempt at writing a novel (three or four pages!) at 13, and wrote my first play at 14.  I also trained in acting, and other skills of stage, screen and radio.  I love being a compère at events.

The colonial era continually fascinates me.   It was not only our history for approximately a hundred years, until 1963 (attainment of Republican status), it also hugely impacts the present.   However, my interest is instinctual.  My appetite for history is keen, sometimes ravenous.  I approach it with delight and objectivity.  Some time ago, I read in the manuscript of an acquaintance, the accusation that the British never bothered to learn the languages of the races they administered.  I told him his claim was erroneous, and referred him to a book or two.  After the early phase, colonial cadets had to undergo a year’s colonial course at Cambridge before going to Nigeria and other colonies.  Each appointee studied the language of the community to which they had been posted, along with survey, law, tropical hygiene, and other disciplines.  The preparations were not slapdash.  Missionaries and traders also acquired indigenous languages, out of sheer interest, or because they deemed the skill essential to their work, or due to innate flair for languages.  Expatriates toiled to translate the Bible into indigenous languages.  (please decide whether the underlined is required)

I’ve made notes for a play on Corona Virus.  As is usual with me, I shall incorporate details I consider relevant to the play’s unfolding.  It should not be merely a tract about Covid-19.  It should be ‘three-dimensional’ – as in the popular phrase – about people living through the impasse.

POEM by Reginald Chiedu Ofodile 

A gift to art

Homebound, like suspects under house arrest,
forbidden callers, spending months alone,
enforced seclusion saps our hope and zest,
we’re shackled captives, merely lying prone.

Creatives in despair I urge to view
the current deadlock as a heaven-sent boon,
as hustle, parties, trysts, we must eschew,
for focused work, the times are opportune.

Despite the blights of hunger, debts and fear,
espy a silver streak in Covid’s cloud,
arresting, lasting items will appear
attesting talent flustered but uncowed.

•By Reginald Chiedu Ofodile