Tade Ipadeola, lawyer, artist, poet, and prolific writer, won the 2013 NLNG Nigeria Prize for literature with his book, The Sahara Testaments. A versatile author and renowned poet, in this interview with Edozie Udeze, explores the world of writing and states all the numerous authors who have in one way or the other influenced his person and style of writing.
What sort of books do you like most?
Collections of poetry, novels, the occasional biography and autobiography, short story collections and books of essays all interest me. Presently I am reading J.P Clark’s Still Full Tide, his collected works. A phenomenal collection for range and an example of what a committed poet should aim at accomplishing within a lifetime. I find myself wondering how he found the time to also write the plays. I read drama too but I’d rather go to the theatre for that than read the book. If the playwright is long dead and the play isn’t part of the repertoire of any theatre company around, then I’d read the play in a book. Say Aeschylus for example, or Sophocles. I wrestle with scholarly books from time to time, I’ve been reading Akin Adesokan’s Post Colonial Artists and Global Aesthetics recently, it is a rare accomplishment and I think every serious writer should engage the ideas in the book.
When you read a book, what are the salient things you look out for most?
Ideas, basically. I want to see how the author’s mind engages with the ideas he is trying to express. They say a good book should be slightly more intelligent than the author though, so I am also listening for the pauses. I believe a good book should not only address the ‘problema’ in the proper Latin sense of the word, it should also address a ‘lacuna’ which the reader may not even be aware existed. I look for a book that solves a problem and I look for a book that fills a void. Sometimes I’m lucky and I find a book that does both. Perhaps that is why I am predisposed toward poetry. When, for example, I first read the poems of Niyi Osundare at the University, it was a novel experience. The Eye of the Earth was unlike any collection of poetry I had ever read up till that point. It was fluid, mellifluous, African. I loved the way he made the English language obey his will.
Who are your favourite authors in the world and why?
Ah, e go hard to list all of them o. Let us start from home. I like J.P Clark, Soyinka, Okigbo, Amos Tutuola, Franz Fanon, Oswald Mtshali, Jared Angira, OusmaneSembene, AyiKweiArmah, Femi Osofisan, OdiaOfeimun, Tony Marinho, Afam Akeh, Harry Garuba, Akin Adesokan, Daniel Fagunwa, AkinwumiIsola, EbenezarObadare, Kgositsile, Marquez, Kunene, Lisa Combrinck, Andre Brink, NgugiwaThiongo, Sefi Atta, Wale Adebanwi, OgagaIfowodo, Niran Okewole, Emmanuel Iduma, OlubunmiFamiloni, ChumaNwokolo, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, Benson Eluma, RotimiBabatunde, Molara Wood, Ike Okonta, Amatoritsero Ede, Jumoke Verissimo, ToyinAdewale-Gabriel, Chika Unigwe, ChieduEzeanah, UcheNduka, RethabileMasilo and the yet to be properly published Yomi Ogunsanya and Sam Ogabidu. Yes, Leopold Sedar Senghor especially. From around the world: Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Czeslaw Milosz, Jose Saramago, Pablo Neruda, W.H Auden, Paul Muldoon, Le Clezio, C.L.R James, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Primo Levi, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, George Elliot Clarke, Alice Munro, George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite, Kenzaburo Oe, Tomas Transtromer, AravindAdiga, Ibsen, Joel Toledo, Gen Asenjo, AnkurBetageri and a really exciting young writer called Joel Dicker. I don’t think it is possible to make a list of every author who has ever moved me profoundly. Several essayists I really like are not on this list but it doesn’t mean their works are not deep. I live works that challenge the intellect and the imagination.
When and where do you like to read and what time and why?
I like to read in the morning and late at night. Those are the times I’m freshest. Depending on the gravity of the material, I also like to read when travelling.
What is your preferred literary genre?
Poetry, without doubt.
What book or books have had the greatest impact on you and why?
Books which provide the reader with a handle on the world are precious. The books that have had the most impact on me are books that have the capacity to transport me into the dimension of reality they try to relate. The novels of Garcia Marquez, especially Love in the Time of Cholera and the poetry of Derek Walcott, especially Omeros, do that for me.
As a child what books tickled you most?
Daniel Fagunwa’s Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale was the book I couldn’t stop reading. After my first Fagunwa, I kept reading all the others I could lay hands on, and I couldn’t stop until I had read every one.
At what point in your life did you begin to nurse the idea of becoming a writer?
In secondary school I did write essays and some of them won prizes. But I was in my mid-twenties when I knew for sure I would be a writer. I was lucky to have mentors and friends who pointed me in that direction. I was already working at the Ministry of Justice in Ibadan. There was a ferment in Ibadan of the early nineties. One day, the poet Lola Shoneyin delivered a message to me from Chief Bola Ige who had read some of my poems. He wanted to see me in person. It was at an ANA reading at his home that he began to really challenge me to write seriously. I haven’t looked back since.
How has writing shaped or reordered your life?
Completely. I set out initially to practice as a lawyer and I do have a competitive streak in me. I knew I would not be content to just be one of the fellows in wig and gown. But since I immersed myself in serious writing, that has changed a little. Readings, competitions and residencies abroad on account of writing means I cannot but scale down my ambitions at the bar a notch or two. I haven’t regretted it. I still enjoy being a lawyer but a completed book gives the kind of satisfaction that one cannot get elsewhere. Nothing compares, really. It is now, for me, the life of one dancing to a distant drum. Those close by you may begin to doubt your sanity and a few bold ones will even suggest to you a change of course but a real writer cannot decline the enchantment of writing.
If you meet your favourite author face to face what would you like to ask him/her?
How do you do it? I want to know how the great authors do what they do best. In fact I want the how-of-the-how as well. Good writing isn’t an accident. From the little I have read, it is a life of committed work.
Of the plays you’ve read which character struck you most?
I think that the character of Brother Jeroboam in Wole Soyinka’s Trials of Brother Jero strikes me as a very accurate rendition of the personality of the scoundrel. The Nigerian scoundrel particularly, and how that scoundrel manages to be of such influence. Look at Nigeria today. A building owned by a charlatan collapses and kills over a hundred human beings, both Nigerians and foreigners. And politicians who should enforce standards say they are paying the villain condolence visits. It is totally bizarre.
What book do you plan to read next?
I am currently reading the manuscript of a book by Mr Nigel Henry titled Do Something Before You Die, a truly fascinating document that every Nigerian ought to read in print. And I am also reading King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
How do you arrange your private library?
There is a shelf hanging from my study walls. It has books that only my closest friends can read or take away. People like Niran Okewole and Wale Dada. These guys give me access to their own private libraries. Then there are the shelves in my living room which have books which everyone can read.
Are you a reader and how often?
Actually, I can’t remember a time I didn’t read. I can’t imagine stopping my readings.
