Chika Unigwe
Unigwe lives and works in Turnhout, Belgium. Her novel, On Black Sisters Street was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. It will be published by Random House , NY in 2011
How to be an African
with thanks to Binyavanga Wainaina for his brilliant How to Write about AfricaFirst of all, get rid of any hang-ups you might have about Africa being a continent. It is a country, and so when people ask if you speak African, or eat African, do not get all worked up trying to explain how a homogenous Africa only exists in a lazy imagination. And certainly do not go the complicated route of explaining about how a country like Nigeria has over three hundred different languages. (Languages Not dialects Are you sure) Do everyone a favour and smile and say Yes or No as the spirit moves you. It will save you some frustration. Believe me, I know. It will also save your interrogator some bafflement. If you want to be humorous though, you can ask your interrogator if they speak European. Be prepared for some lessons on history though. Europe is a continent of history. Unlike that country, Africa, which is too dark for any sense of history to permeate.
When you are asked - as you invariably will - if the freedom of the West does not please you, if you are not amazed by its wealth, if you do not feel lucky to be sitting in this lap of luxury, be sure to react appropriately. Lead the discussion on the dictatorship of African leaders, on the poverty of its people, on HIV AIDS killing off an entire continent. Mention a few times how indeed you are lucky to be away from all that. Talk about family and friends you know who have been incarcerated, or about to be, for defending their freedom, this very freedom that you now take for granted. Talk about the big issues: gay bashing; corpses abandoned by the road side; genocide and ethnic cleansing; wars; and the almighty FGM. The more gruesome the better. If you’ve never personally experienced any of these, use your imagination: everyone has some of it. Success stories are not interesting.
They are not African.
Also, do not forget to talk about patriarchy, the oppression of women by big bad men who hit their wives and refuse to educate their daughters. If you are a woman, it is advisable to talk about the opportunities you are lucky to have since being in Europe.
If you are a writer, never forget to acknowledge the fact that your writing style derives from the great story-telling traditions of your people. Talk about being inspired by hearing a wise ancient tell stories under the perfect moonlight of a village night. Fill your memories of such nights with the sounds of chirping crickets; of animals living in complete harmony with humans. Such nights must be cool and dry. The story teller must have a deep, serenading voice. Have little children run around chasing lizards and the like. Your interrogator would usually ask you at this point if you don’t think that Africa’s race towards modernity is a huge loss. You should agree with him and expound on the corrupting evils of TV and computer games. And of your nostalgia for the African nights of your childhood.
Never ever admit to an inability to dance. That would compromise your Africaness. Even if you dance like a three-legged-duck, always agree that yes, Africans are born dancing. Tell stories of how when you were in your mother’s womb, you tapped and jiggled around whenever you heard the sound of distant drums. You might indulge your interrogator by showing off some moves, some of that rhythm you have in your genes.
Finally, (remember the old adage, while in Rome, do like the Romans) integration is the key word for African migrants. You must not compare yourself to western expatriates in Africa who mainly stick to their kind, occasionally talking to the native gardener, maid and gateman to give instructions; who often driving long distances to get the perfect cheese, or other familiar fare they consider essential for survival in Africa. They might have packages of peanut butter and chocolate spread sent from home by nervous family keen to aid their survival. Do not get the idea that you are equal to them, and start stinking out your neighbours with the smell of the food issuing from your kitchen. If you live in an apartment, please see that the food you cook does not irritate the sensitive nostrils of your neighbours. You might be reminded that an essential part of integration is learning to adapt to the food of your host country. And the only way to truly show your gratitude to your host country is by your willingness to completely subsume your old identity (eating habits included) and take on the new, civilized one.
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Guerilla Basement had a quick chat with Chika.
The book took an enormous amount of research to write, tell us about what that entailed and how crucial it was to the authenticity of the story
On Black Sisters Street focuses on the lives of four prostitutes. I knew nothing about that life, could not even begin to pretend to know what it felt like to stand in a glass showcase and be appraised by customers. Imagination and the passion to tell a story can only take one so far. I had to know more about the word I was creating for my characters, and there was no other way of doing it than going there, feeling firsthand what it is like as a woman to be in the red light district (even as a mere observer, it added a certain depth to my understanding of my characters, ) and talking to the women themselves.
I was particularly enthralled in the way you portray sex in the book. You describe the same act but in different circumstances and with different meaning and I think the most powerful was the rape scene. Tell us why it was important to represent the various sex acts in the ways you did?
Sex isn’t just sex, is it? The circumstances under which it happens, the relationship between the partakers , and the age(s) of those involved determine how we describe it: making love, rape, illegal, incestuous, immoral, and so on. It can be beautiful, under the right circumstances, but change the circumstances and it becomes ugly, gruesome even. Look at what is happening in the Congo, where rape is being used as a weapon of war.
Still on the subject of sex, it is something that sometimes makes some African audiences uncomfortable either for conservative reasons or purely hypocritical reasons. Do you think there is a need to address sexuality in literature as part of an open discourse?
I am not one to be prescriptive. We are the sum total of our traditions. In many of our African traditions, sex is not to be played out on a public platform. Not in literature, not in music and so on. Public display of affection is frowned upon. I do not in anyway advocate prudishness, but I am also, not a great fan of gratuitous inclusion of public display of sex , or any show off in societies.
What is the worst thing a critic has said about your work and how do you respond to critics?
I honestly couldn’t say. I think the silliest thing a critic ever wrote was that I should write a proper “African story”, whatever that is. The immigrant story isn’t authentic enough. I try not to respond to critics.
I read a piece written by Helen Oyeyemi the author of “The Icarus Girl” about dropping out of her MFA programme in Columbia University. She says of the experience;
“The classes demanded more writing about writing than I was able to keep up with. Actually I don’t know what on earth I’d been expecting. I should have realised that writing programs are for writers with a system, writers who have sufficient self awareness to consistently adapt different literary techniques and styles into their own”
We know that you have a Literature PHD, what are your thoughts on MFAs?
Writers are born, but that talent, the ability to write isn’t fixed and immutable. It can be honed, and that is what good MFA programmes do, by creating an environment for peer critique, nurturing a network of some sort, putting emerging writers in contact with people from the industry. It helps a lot.
As a reader what do you find to be the difference between writers from creative writing backgrounds and those without?
There are some works I read and they read as if they’ve been cauterized. You can’t fault them in terms of technique but the works have no soul. It is like going into a house where everything is clean and tidy and disinfected and books are arranged alphabetically and it smells like a hospital, and every time you drop a crumb, it’s picked up immediately by the host(ess) , and then being asked to feel free. You can’t feel free. Compare that to entering a house which is clean, not cluttered, but still looks very lived in, and smells like a home. In that home you can roam. Some writers write in a very self conscious way, and it shows. I don’t know if they are writers who have been on MFA programmes or not.
Tell us about five of your favorite books and why?
At the moment they are: The Known World by Edward P. Jones: beautiful, brilliant book.
Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo: thought provoking, relevant; and intelligent.
The museum of Innocence by Orhan Pahmuk: I have a crush on its protagonist, Kemal Bey. He is devoted in love and notices a woman’s earrings.
A moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood: she tells some of the best short stories in the whole wide world.
All the collections of Alice Munro’s short stories. Munro is the mistress of the short story.
Are there any things you would like to change about “On Black Sisters Street”?
No. Of course I never think anything I write is perfect, but OBSS will do just as it is. I haven’t re-read it since it was written by the way. I don’t like re-reading my works.
What book did you wish you wrote?
Loads! I am reading Zadie Smith’s collection of essays, Changing my Mind, and I am feeling very envious.
What are your hopes for writers living in Africa and Diaspora?
That we remain free to practice our art
What is your take on awards and self publishing?
Speaking from my own experience, awards are a validation of a writer’s works. We all seek validation, writers perhaps more than others, because how else do you judge your work but by other people’s reaction to it?
Self-publishing, hmm. It obviously has its successes, look at Sade Adeniran for example. The question though is what incentive does a publisher have to make sure a book is the best it can be, if he has not financially invested in it? He’s not going to invest his time in making sure the edits are done and so on.
What are you working on right now?
A historical novel that is giving me a very tough time.
Chika Unigwe has a Ph.D in Literature from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Her debut novel, De Feniks was published in 2005 by Meulenhoff and Manteau (of Amsterdam and Antwerp) and was shortlisted for the Vrouw en Kultuur debuutprijs for the best first novel by a female writer. She is also the author of two children’s books published by Macmillans, London.
She has published short fiction in several anthologies, journals and magazines. In 2003, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Fiction. She won the BBC Short story Competition and a Commonwealth Short Story Competition award. Her second novel, Fata Morgana, was published in Dutch in 2008 and will soon be released in English. Her first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch in September 2005 and it is the first book of fiction, written by a Flemish author of African origin. In 2009, Chika Unigwe’s new novel On Black Sisters’ Street about African prostitutes living and working in Belgium, was published by Jonathan Cape
On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe is available on Amazon.
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