21st December, 2022
There is something fascinating about award-winning Nigerian-American writer, Nnedi Okorafor. Not only does she write fantasy and science fiction and has made a success of it, she lives it. She is best known for works such as Zahrah the Windseeker, Who Fears Death, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, to mention a few. She has also won several notable awards such as Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, The World Fantasy Award, Nebula Award for Best Novella and Hugo Award for Best Novella.
The US-based writer was in Nigeria recently as a guest of the 2022 Ake Arts and Book Festival which held in Lagos. In this Interview with NEHRU ODEH she speaks about how she became a writer, why she writes fantasy and science fiction and what inspires her writing.
The story of how you became a writer is astonishing. Could you share that story?
A very great story {laughs). But first I wrote a memoir, a short memoir specifically about this time in my life called Broken Spaces & Outer Spaces. It is not a short story, it’s a lot. So, I’m going to try to summarize this as quickly as possible. Okay, little facts: Both my parents are athletes. My mum made the Olympic team, in the Javelin for the Nigerian team. Then my dad was known all over Africa as a hurdler. They are both top students and also top athletes. So, that’s where I come from. All of my siblings were very, very athletic. I have been athletic since I was born. That’s always been my thing. From the age of nine to 19 I played Semi-Pro tennis. My sisters also played Semi-Pro tennis. We travelled the United States. That’s was how I got to see the United States as an athlete. And also, I was a track star. I did the 400 metres dash, the mile relay, the high jump, the 800. So, yeah, those were my main events. I just allow those. I love running, all that. That was really my identity. And also growing up I loved maths and the sciences. Those were my areas, not so much literature, except that I loved reading. But I didn’t do so well in literature. Okay, that is the foundation. When I was 13, and this was when I was touring the country playing tennis, I had about 140 miles per hour serve and a really powerful forehand, was really fast, could run around with my backhand, all that. So, when I was 13, throughout all of these, I was diagnosed with scoliosis which is the curvature of the spine. It is something that a lot of people have. It’s not a major thing but for me it was very serious because mine was very aggressive. The thing is that my tennis game since it was dominated by one side of my body might have thrown my spine off. And also, I grew up very quickly in a very short period of time. I went from average height to tall within six months. That might have also thrown it off. My scoliosis was extremely aggressive. By the time I was 19 – that’s the magic year – and I was in the tennis team at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, they did an X-ray and they saw my scoliosis was really, really severe. My back was in the shape of an S and they said the gravity was pulling it down, compressing my organs and that I would be crippled by the time I was 25 despite the fact that I was all of these athletic things. I was performing incredibly. But by the tine I would be 25 I would be crippled and my life would be significantly shortened. And, of course, I agreed to have the surgery to straighten it up. And they said I would be back on the tennis court in a matter of months. When you have a surgery there is a one per cent chance of paralysis because you are dealing with the spine. So, when I had the surgery, nine hours later I was paralysed from the waist down. And they didn’t know why. It was a very, very dark time for me. There are no words for it. I was 19 in the hospital bed and I couldn’t even roll over. It was like half of my body had disappeared. While in this state of darkness, in the first few days, especially at night when everyone went home and I was alone I had to deal with where I was and what I was. It could have been that I lost my mind or figured something out. At that point I had a copy of Isaac Asimov’s book and I couldn’t read it. I was in too much pain to read it. And I had a pen and just started writing stories to myself, just to keep myself sane. And the first story that I wrote was about a woman who could fly. When you can fly, you don’t have to walk. . I look back and I am like it is very clear why I wrote that. That was really the beginning of writing for me.
To make a long story short, over those months, with massive physical therapy, like practice, I used my athleticism and my knowledge of training to kind of bring myself back. The sensation slowly returned to my legs. It was with lot of efforts. And I had to literally learn how to work again. The way that I walk now is different from the way I learnt how to walk when I was a baby. I learnt how to walk again and this was over some months. I went from being in a wheelchair to a walker and from a health walker to walking with the cane. And I returned to walking with the cane. The thing that I lost through all of this was my quickness, the ease of movement. So, I wasn’t able to return to playing tennis. It was really painful for me. I am an athlete. I was always going to be an athlete. But after all of that I still returned that very next semester to walking with the cane and also writing. I was writing the stories. But I didn’t know what I was doing. Maybe a semester later a friend of mine looked at what I was doing and told me to take a creative writing class. I took the creative writing class and I discovered what it was that I loved doing so much. That was the beginning and I haven’t stopped writing since then. So that’s the story of how I became a writer.
Why did you choose fantasy and science fiction?
It was natural. I didn’t choose fantasy. But science fiction was a little different. The first stories that I wrote are set in Nigeria. The idea of the flying woman was from Nigeria. I am a Nigerian-American. I was born and raised in the United States but I have been coming back here since I was a kid. So that’s in me already. So, once it started like I am actually the person that make up the stories, I don’t know. Wherever the energies, the stories were, it is always Nigeria. Always. And so, I started writing the stories. And it isn’t just Nigeria. It’s Nigeria as a whole, the culture, the people. Everything about it has fantastical aspect to me. Just naturally, there is always a mysticism, a mystique here that I had always picked up even before I was writing stories. I have always been very imaginative. So, put me in this kind of environment then I am going to see all those mystical things very clearly.
The first stories that I wrote were non-fiction. They were about incidents that happened in Nigeria. This was after the flying woman story. When I write them, they have this mystical quality; they are, just naturally, with the way that I described things, with the way that I saw things. And so that was really the beginning of the fantastical stuff. It wasn’t like I was trying to write fantasy. I wasn’t trying to write fantasy. I was just writing the way I naturally saw the world. And as I wrote more stories, I just kind of looked at what I was doing. Other people were reading my stuff as fantasy, even though I’m like that is not fantasy (laughs). I’m not making things up. These are literally what happened.
The science fiction aspect came later. Because the first stories I was writing were mainly Nigerian based, especially Igbo fantastical narratives. That were kind of taken from what was here. But then somewhere along the line, I started noticing technology showing up in Nigeria, especially in some of the more rural parts. Especially when I go to my village and I see especially cell phones, which are chargeable, you can bring them everywhere, they show up anywhere. And I started noticing this here. I am like that’s cool. And I noticed that technology was kind of shifting things in a really unique way. I wanted to see that in stories. I looked at stories, no one was doing it. I’m like I wanted to read it first and I saw nothing to read. So, I decided to write what I wanted to read. That’s how I started writing science fiction.
Why the love for African fantasies? Did the fact that you were born and bred in the United States influence your love for fantasies?
I think it did. Being Nigerian-American is not just being born there. When my parents emigrated to the United States, they didn’t let go of Nigeria. They ended up staying because of the war. They had planned to go back. They didn’t want to leave Nigeria. They wanted to come back to bring the knowledge that they had learnt because they went to school. Both of my parents are doctors. My father is a cardiovascular surgeon, my mother has a Ph.D. in Health Administration. They wanted to bring the knowledge they had learnt over there back to Nigeria. Then the war happened. They couldn’t go back for a while and they ended up staying there. But in staying there, they weren’t like I want to become an American, I want to leave all that behind. They wanted to be all of it. They wanted to be American but they knew they were Nigerian and they were proud of it and they held on to that. My mum specifically did not lose her accent. She worked hard to keep her accent. She didn’t want to sound like American. She wanted to sound like where she was from. So that rubbed off on me. Their pride rubbed off on me. There are four of us, my siblings and I, and none of us has European names. We all have Ibo names, from our first names, our middle names, to our last names. All of us. And my parents just did that. It wasn’t that they were trying to make a point. They were just so connected. They understood that, Okay my kids are going to be Nigerian-American. They are growing up in the United States, they need to be connected to their culture. So, they can’t even instill that in us? That’s the foundation that I come from. And so, when I came to Nigeria, I was naturally interested. It wasn’t that let me just stay in my hotel room, in the air conditioning. I wanted to be outside. I was running around with my cousins. I was eating everything and everything was delicious. I have stories about the first time I ate some fried plantain, like a lot of it. I was overwhelmed. I was just shoving it in my mouth. It was so delicious.
I have this natural interest. That interest also translated into the mystical, the spiritual. I love masquerades, for example. They would harass us in the village, like crazy. Because my sisters and I – my brothers were much younger – were so athletic we were fast. You could not catch us. So, the masquerades even know whenever we were in town, they were Oh these American-Nigerian girls are here. They would just jump out from behind buildings. They were always chasing us everywhere. My parents would see them chasing us down the street and they would be like Oh yeah, anyway, okay and they would continue with their discussion. So, we grew up with that. I was fascinated by the masquerades because they harassed us. And I wanted to know more about them. When I asked about them, they were like Oh you can’t know about them because you are female. Women are not supposed to know anything about masquerades and the secret societies. And that made me more interested. I developed an ear for those things that I wasn’t supposed to know, that were secret, that were taboo, whatever. I started listening to those things. I would learn things from an uncle: What happened to the secret societies? He was like Oh you are not supposed to know them. I’m not telling you. So, I got more interested. When I asked another uncle, what is Nsibidi? “Oh you’re not supposed to know them.” And I shelved them at the back of my mind. And then when I got to be a student at the university, I had access to the libraries. And so, I could research some of those things that I can learn about but nobody would tell me about. And then you have these anthropologists who come to Nigeria and look at all this stuff, even when they were lied to. Because I think, sometimes, they were lied to until they heard all the stuff is a mishmash of lies and truths. And I was fascinated. That’s where the interest comes from.
Each time you come home to Nigeria, did your grandparents or the people back home tell you stories? How do those stories influence your writing?
Yeah, my uncles. There is always a language barrier with my grandparents, which was difficult. I don’t speak Igbo and there is a whole story behind that (laughs). I wanted to speak Igbo. And it has to do with whenever we go to the village we get laughed at. You try to speak it and you know you are mutilating the language. Our American tongues were mutilating the language. I understand that. And it was hilarious to people. I’m a teenager and I’m trying to speak the language and it’s embarrassing. After a while, I just stopped trying. That’s really why I don’t know Igbo. It’s like the laughing just made me kind of self-conscious. And I regret that. There was a language barrier with my grandparents. Because I always wanted to know all the stories but they kept us from learning too much. So, I learnt some of the stories from especially my uncles, like one of my uncles in particular. He is more of a storyteller. He just loved telling stories. Like anything that you asked him he would tell you. Their proverbs, their folktales, he knew a lot of those. He would tell those to all of us. But for me I was just listening, then would write them down (laughs). I’m going to use that. That’s good, that’s good. Yeah, those stories literally made it into most of my stories in various ways. Sometimes in a literal way, when people don’t even know I am doing that. Sometimes I had someone tell me stories. And those stories were told me especially by my uncle.
You are a big name and have won so many notable awards. How do Americans see your stories? Are they enchanted by them?
I think they are. It’s kind of a double-edged sword. I think that Americans audience are definitely enchanted. They’ve never heard things that I am writing about. Actually, it’s funny because a lot of things that I write about that are real they think they are fantasy. And I get really frustrated with that. Because I’m like That’s not made up. I didn’t make that up. And one of the things I always say when I’m talking is that, Yeah. you will be surprised how much I didn’t make up in what you are reading. I didn’t make up the stories. So, they are enchanted. But a lot of times – I’m just speaking generally – there are things that I’m writing about that are foreign to them and their response to something being foreign is they feel the need to control it. To control it means putting it in a box, like comparing it to something that is familiar to them. You know. So, they would be like this, Oh so you are writing about this. So, it’s like this in American culture. But in doing that they miss what I’m doing. They see the commonalities, but they are so afraid of the differences. They are so confused by them that they don’t see them. So, they miss a lot of what I’m doing because they are trying to see something familiar. I find that very frustrating. There are things I’m writing about, things I’m doing, that I want to be understood but it is impossible if you’re so resistant to something that is foreign to you. I read a lot of things that are from very different cultures. I love that. And the way that I read them is not that I try to find the familiar thing in them. I just relax and let it wash over me. And I’m fine with my understanding something. If I don’t understand this particular custom I keep reading and let the story tell me what it needs to tell me. Because if it is well-written, it would be in there. American readers in a lot of ways find that very difficult. But I do think that American readers are very interested in other cultures. They love that idea.
You have a unique way of entitling your books. For example, Zahrah The Windseeker, Who Fears Death, Kabu Kabu, the Akata series etc. How do you get those great titles?
I don’t know (laughs). I don’t know. Sometimes the titles would be clear, like I would know them right away. Others, they would take a little while. For instance, I was half way though Who Fears Death but I didn’t have a tittle. Then I came to Nigeria and I met my cousin’s fiancé. And as I was talking to him, I asked What’s your last name? He said Onyesonwu. And when I hear Onwu I know it is death. So when I heard that, I was interested. My ears were like Uuuh what’s does that mean? I want to know what that mean. So, I asked him what does your name mean? He said it means who fears death. In my head I just said, Aaah I just got the title to my book. I’m stealing that. I have got a title. So that’s I got that title. It’s different every time. Sometimes it’s instant, like Zahrah the Windseeker. I knew that was the title. I just knew it from the beginning. But others, I had to like wait for it to come.
What inspired the Akata series?
Trips to Nigeria. You know those mystical aspects, especially in the village. We would stay in my dad’s ancestral village, Arondizuogu and Isiekenesi, which is my mum’s. We would stay there. We would stay in Lagos for the first half of the trip and then we go there for the second half. The second half is always the most eventful. There is drama, lots of drama. It’s also being like out in nature. There’s just something there and honestly that’s really the inspiration for that series, that vibe that I got when I’m in the village. I also wanted to write a story that featured young adults who were from Nigeria and maybe two of them were not, who were having adventures there specific to the region. I wanted to do that. And when I decided I wanted to do that the stories just came. It’s quite the easiest to write for me. There’s a lot there.
Have you had any difficulties as a writer? And have you had rejection slips. How do you feel when you have one?
One, I don’t experience writer’s block. It does not exist to me. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t believe it exists. I think there are others issues like if someone can’t write there is something else going on. There’s no mental condition like you just blocked up. But I think those who believe that convince themselves of it and then it happens. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t have that issue. But when it comes to difficulties, I can’t really say that I have difficulties writing. I understand the process of writing. It’s not an easy thing. It’s part of what it is. So, I don’t see it as a difficulty. I see it as a fact. I see it as a state of being and it doesn’t bother me at all. So, there’s also the way that I started writing through a trauma. And writing has always been very therapeutic. It’s something that I do even when things are dark. I write when I am happy. And I write when I’m in the worst state I have ever been in. I have always been like that. So, I don’t have any difficulty writing. It’s something that I do. It’s like breathing that I do naturally.