By Edozie Udeze, Abuja
Dr. Udenta Udenta is a scholar, human rights activist, and author of many books. A former member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) he is equally a consummate writer and reader, one whose love for literature is incontrovertible. With over 21 books to his credit, he says that a lot of African writers helped to shape his world-view as a writer. Among them is the Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o . He shares his life and writing career in this interview with Edozie Udeze in Abuja
What inspires you to write?
Well, it depends on the type of material one is writing on. Well, I started writing at the age of 13. And the first wave of my creative productions ended when I was about 14 and half years old. So you can imagine a young boy who has just turned to puberty how the mind will be shaped and absorbing so many sensations. And my output then was quite incredible – with about 4 novels, 3 to 4 collection of poems, 3 to 4 collection of short stories, philosophical music, some commentaries on reflections of school life. How could I as a young boy ever fathom out the forces that injected my productivity to summon the muse as a conscious art? So for me the power of creative productions is something that is instructable, something that defies categorization, lacks great logical understanding. Which means it could just be a wave or it could just be a tree that flashes in your mind. It could be a river; it could be the drumming of rain on the roof of the house that could bring out that imagination. But yet, I know that I read much as a small boy. So all the stuff I read must have inspired me.
Which book in particular did it for you?
There were many books indeed. For instance Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Then Weep Not Child by Ngugi Wa Thinog’o, who used to be James Ngugi but now Wa Thiong’o. Then Peter Abraham’s Mine Boy, a fantastic book too. Zambia Shall Be Free by Kenneth Kaunda. All these books and more did it for me. They were very important texts for secondary school students then. But before we started reading these mature books, we first of all studied books like Eze Goes to School by Onuora Nzekwu, New Broom at Amanzu, One Week One Trouble. These were types of works we read, and you saw yourself reflected in those stories, in the imaginations of the authors. Then you say to yourself, I will write like these authors; I will be like them. I can write the way they write because I have some communality with the kind of experiences they have expressed, they have related in their works. To create the work of a short story or a novel or a great work of art, it seems I am also criticizing the work of an author.
Which genre of literature is your best medium?
Prose fiction without hesitation, yes the novel is it for me, first and foremost. This is because the sense of narration is in the verbal art form, our indigenous art form which we call rituals, storytelling, what we call moonlight story-telling, the conclave of village boys and girls playing in the arena or your grandmother gathering everybody by the fire-side telling you stories. So this sense of storytelling, this sense of narration is what I find recaptured in auspicious moments in a novel. Just like you have in Things Fall Apart, in Arrow of God, etc. That is what I find fascinating. Of course there are other aspects of rituals and other forms which form part of dramatic forms, where you have people playing in the village square. Even games that children play also is a form of drama. I hold drama in high esteem yet I find it too difficult to penetrate. I also did a work in poetry. This is as a tribute to my study of poetry. But if I am to write a critical text, it has to be in the novel form.
Which characters have so inspired you in all these books?
Quite a number of characters, both in African literature and global literature as a whole. People will always say it that the sheer historical importance of Things Fall Apart is what dwarfs every other text Achebe has written. But the incredible thing for those in literature who understand, Things Fall Apart is an apprentice work compared to Arrow of God. Achebe’s most mature work, a masterpiece is Arrow of God. For me the character Ezeulu is the highest celebration of African hero, even in a tragic moment. In Chima Azuonye, I don’t know where the Professor is now, in his early essay on Arrow of God, which he captioned on the brink of knowing the quest on the Arrow of God, he gave the most enchanting celebration of that work. The complexity of that character, Ezeulu and the way he was constructed shows the whole tragedy of the character. This surpassed what Achebe constructed in Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart. So Arrow of God producing Ezeulu is one of the best characters I have encountered. There are quite a few other characters too in other books I have read.
Where and when do you like to read or write most?
You mean in terms of space and time? Or even in terms of circumstances? Whenever the muse catches me, yes. Because of time I like to read and study most of the time. I like to read in my study most of the time. Then it could be under the tree in the garden. I can read there. I love to read early in the morning. I am almost like a nocturnal animal. I do not go to bed before 3a.m and I can wake up pretty late. If you have an appointment with me before 11a.m you may not find me there. So when the night is still, when the darkness has enveloped the night and when the moon is shining high in the sky, then that spirit will possess me and come over me. Not only the spirit of creativity in terms of proper production, but in terms of clear and articulate thought-process, That is the moment for me to capture the thoughts.
Who are your favourite authors in Nigeria?
Let me say in Africa? Well, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o has always been there as the first of them all. This is because he handles and sees the country from his ideological stand point. His ideological stand point on national issues has always inspired me. We have nuanced that over the years, very powerful force in African literature. You find this so much in Petals of Blood, Devil on the Cross, Maitigari and so on. Here his nuanced ideology because of human conditions, makes him my favourite author.
Achebe is not far from there. Achebe in Arrow of God shows his importance as an author. Yes the early Wole Soyinka, The Jero Plays, The Lion and The Jewel, Strong Breed, Dance of the Forest and Kongi’s Harvest and The Road – no matter what you say about Soyinka, his use of words, his understanding of the craft of act of drama – oh, great. So the power of Wole Soyinka as a dramatist is very vital but cannot be appreciated in the text. I think he is better watched on stage than read in the text. To that extent, that becomes some sort of redemption for me in terms of his difficult texts or so. But I believe you do not have to lower the standard. People should struggle to get to where you are, yes. You don’t have to climb down to where everyone is. That is cheapening thoughts, cheapening intellectual output. Also the early breed of the nationalist writers are my favourites. Because we were young when they were writing and this simply made them fascinating to us. These include the Onuora Nzekwus, the T. M. Alukos, the Elechi Amadis. We love all their works absolutely. But the younger generations are not far from this. The literary firmament in Nigeria, in Africa has really sustained this rich momentum. For over seventy years, it has been like that. So for every generation, they have always been reincarnating something new, something spectacularly different from the old generations. So whether you talk about Amos Tutuola or those in Achebe and Soyinka generation, to Femi Osofisan or to Tess Onwuemeh or Ben Okri, then to the Chimamandas and others, it is quite a global phenomenon. Nigerian Literature may be the most vibrant tradition today in global arena.
If you meet any of these writers, what will be the first question?
Well, the first question will be like, it is my pleasure to meet you for the first time. I won’t even rush in to ask, how do you do it? Oh, Ngugi came to Nsukka in 1983 or 1984 and I missed out on that. Achebe was very much around then. So we used to peep around over the window to watch Achebe teach. Then Ngugi visited. But if it were to be now that I am more mature, I will simply like to know him. And then I will sit down with him and I’d like to know him better. And if I have to sit down with him, I’d like to know the questions you are asking me. I will throw it back at him.
How do you arrange your library?
It is quite a difficult and a bit complex process. I have three or four libraries now; they are big, quite big. There is one in the old house which is a little bit of a mess. Some of the books scattered in different positions and locations. I used to read seven books at a time and I still do it now. If you come to my house you’ll see books here and there and I read them and separate my brain from each one when I am reading. I understand each book at the same time whether they deal with philosophy, literature or other themes. I absorb all that. I then channel the knowledge into something very productive.
What books are you reading now?
Ah, if I tell you now you’ll help promote these books (laughs). But I will tell you all the same. One is How Democracies Die. Go search for that book. It will tell you something about past and contemporary Nigerian condition. It is written by two Harvard Professors. Go search for it so that I do not make it easy for you. And it is so hauntingly real, so cogent and couched with details and so illustrative of conditions that possess Nigeria today. There are others too. But there one on Donald Trump that fascinates me a lot. The Trump presidency indeed fascinates me. I have like thirty books now on the Trump presidency, those praising him, those criticizing him and those at the middle.
If you read a prose material what are the issues you look out for?
What I look out for in a prose material? I want to see first and foremost how the character is developed, how the conflicts turned out in the end. Critically, I want to see all that because of my own radical nature, radical writings. I want to see the view of the author, not necessarily to force myself to be in the author’s world, those things he or she did not put in there. But I know that every writer is a product of his own experience, his own environment. There are other social, religious and cultural values, and all these are reflected in the work.
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