•Lizzy
‘Jagua Nana’s Daughter
on my mind’
In this interview, the Director of Caine Prize
and author of Blood on the page, Lizzy Attery, speaks on her works, Mabati
Cornell Kiswahili prize and the Caine Prize. Assistant Editor (Arts) Ozolua
Uhakheme reports.
As
a writer who also organises an award for African writers, which is your
greatest African novel you ever read?
I
have a very soft spot for Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera. She was a Zimbawean
writer who died of AIDS related complications but she was in my opionion a
great novelist . The novel is set in the 1940’s. The novel is a sort of
musical.The novel had profound impact on me. Also in London I was introduced to
several African writers such as Cyprian Ekwesi who wrote Jagua Nana’s Daughter.
I hope to one day turn Butterfly Burnning to a film because of the
imagery I see when I am reading it.
Why
did you write a book Blood on the page?
I
wrote the book, Blood on the page while I was doing a Phd but it was published
after the completion of the programme. The research I was doing got me in
contact to many authors. Some of them were new writers and they were the first
to write about HIV in South-Africa and Zimbabwe. I spent probably a year (2003
/2004) looking for text and when I found them, I discovered nobody has really
critique them. In general, such work hasn’t been done. So, I did it. I educated
myself and got to the source. I knew that in the West, gay people were accused
of spreading the HIV virus. So, to a large extent each chapter is an academic
text and what I did, was to summarise all they said.
What
is your impression of Ake Arts and Book festival and the rocky city of
Abeokuta?
I
am certainly a big fan of the festival, I have met many interesting people and
I listened to what all of them said. I think it is quite a great opportunity to
engage with literary people as well as the local people. I have met several
people here including writers from all over the world. Mukoma Wa Ngugi and many
of my old friends who I have known from several parts of Africa I am
re-connecting here. The festival featured a high caliber of talents and I am
enjoying it. You rarely see this array of talents in one spot. In London as a
mother I don’t go out much to see things like this. For me, to watch Nigerian
films is not just an opportunity, but an honour because you don’t find such
every day. It will take a lot of time for me to digest it.
You
watched October 1, what lesson did you take from it?
One
of the lessons I took from October 1 film is from that perspective of an
oyinbo, (a white person) through which the story is being told. There are
dangerous things, also about the priest who gave more opportunities to people
in the place where the story is set and the way he treated the young boy, the
damage he did in the process while bettering people’s live. It is still
entertaining but it makes one to think deeply why we put trust on some certain
people. Why do we send children away for education? It was a surprise to me
because my appreciation of Nigerian film is limited to Nollywood.
Why
did you partner Mukoma Wa Ngugi for a Kiswahili prize and not a Yoruba or an
Igbo prize?
Mukowa
Wa Ngugi is a crime writer in his own right. He is also a professor of
literature based in the United States. We have really being able to
secure funding in South of Africa by Mabati Rolling Mills who are
producers of iron roofing sheets for over 50 years and they have an interest in
the language spoken by over three hundred million people in that region. We may
not have found a Yoruba prize or an Igbo prize. But, it is an avenue to say
companies that make roofing sheets in Yoruba to encourage Yoruba literature for
instance. Because it is important that African language should be taken
seriously for literature and there should be prizes for it. We the founders
of Mabati Cornell Kiswahili prize are still learning ourselves, it is an
interesting thing to set up for anyone who has that energy for it.
What
next are you working on?
After
the announcement of the Caine prize judges at Ake Art and Book Festival, the
next thing is the funding of the Caine Prize workshop holding in Ghana in March
next year because we don’t know if we are going to get enough funds for the
workshop and flights from one African country to another as it is quite
expensive. And of course, the Mabati Cornell Kiswahili prize. I am current
receiving entries for the Caine Prize and looking through if those stories are eligible.
I have to read those that are too short, too long and the self–published
whether they are eligible. I am also preparing to teach two African courses at
Kings College, London.
How
do you know the stories sent to you are between 3,000 words to ten thousand10,000
words?
I
sometimes count the number of words if I am not sure but when the number of
words published in the short story is written when sent to me, it helps because
I wouldn’t have to count. So, I have interesting things to do as the Caine Prize
Director and also boring things to do like counting the pages and number of
words from one end to the other.
The
judges of this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing were announced at the
recently concluded Ake Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta. The panel will be
chaired by award-winning South African author Zoë Wicomb. She will be joined by
the distinguished television and radio journalist Zeinab Badawi, Indian
author and Man Booker Prize shortlistee Neel Mukherjee, Assistant Prof of
English at the University of Georgetown, Cóilín Parsons, and Brian Chikwava,
the winner of the Caine Prize in 2003.
During
the announcement Attree stated, “We are proud to announce the 2015 judges early
this year and hope the calibre of this outstanding panel will encourage
publishers to enter stories before the deadline of 31 January 2015.”
Kenya’s
Okwiri Oduor won this year’s prize of 10,000 pounds with her short story, My
Father’s Head which explores the narrator’s difficulty in dealing with the loss
of her father and looks at the themes of memory, loss and loneliness. The
narrator works in an old people’s home and comes into contact with a priest,
giving her the courage to recall her buried memories of her father.
Chair
of the judges, Jackie Kay, praised the story, saying, “Okwiri Oduor is a writer
we are all really excited to have discovered. ‘My Father’s Head’ is an
uplifting story about mourning – Joycean in its reach. She exercises an
extraordinary amount of control and yet the story is subtle, tender and moving.
It is a story you want to return to the minute you finish it.”
Oduor
directed the inaugural Writivism Literary Festival in Kampala, Uganda in August
2013. Her novella, The Dream Chasers was highly commended in the Commonwealth
Book Prize, 2012. She is a 2014 MacDowell Colony fellow and is currently at
work on her debut novel. Nigerian writers that have won the Caine Prize in the
past included Helon Habila (2001), Segun Afolabi (2005), E C Osondu (2009) and
Tope Folarin (2013).
