Sefi Atta
Written By: Nicole Parker-Jones—It is the mid-1980s in Lagos and the government’s War Against Indiscipline and austerity measures are fully in operation. Tolani Ajao is a secretary working at Federal Community Bank. A succession of unfortunate events leads Tolani’s roommate and colleague, Rose, to consider drug trafficking as an alternative means of making a living. Tolani’s subsequent struggle with temptation forces her to reconsider her morality and that of her mother Arike’s, as she embarks on a turbulent journey of self-discovery. This sets the stage for chartered accountant and CPA turned literary talent Sefi Atta's uniquely narrated novel, Swallow.
Sefi Atta's first novel, Everything Good Will Come, won the Wole Soyinke Prize for Literature in Africa, andSwallow is also earning critical acclaim.
Read an excerpt from Swallow: A Novel below.
I had to leave the flat to clear my head. My mouth tasted of palm oil. I couldn’t swallow my condom; it was the size of my thumb and as hard as a bone. What used to be my throat was now a pipe, my intestines were a drain and my stomach had become an empty portmanteau. It was as though every possible emotion had charged at me and left me flattened. I didn’t have the will or the ability to care about myself anymore, even to feel sorry for myself, and it was just as well, because the physical challenges I had to face were all that mattered now.
Rose and I were to swallow condoms of cocaine. OC said pushing them up our vaginas or packing them in our luggage was out of the question; the risk was too high. He would give us further instructions when the time was right, take us to the airport, hand us tickets and spending money. Our passports and visas would be arranged meanwhile. We would assume new identities. We were both cashiers, working for a foreign trading company and going overseas for the first time. On vacation. We were to practice by swallowing condoms filled with garri. Margarine, groundnut oil or palm oil would help us get the condoms down. Tablets for constipation would also help. If we succeeded, OC would consider us for the journey. If we spoke a word about his plan, we would both disappear. We were tough enough to follow through; Lagos had made us that tough.
We had to watch what we ate, how often we moved our bowels, and avoid being constipated. For Rose, this was difficult. She did not eat regularly. Swallowing made her vomit, but she got her condom down slightly before it came up. Mine wouldn’t go past the back of my tongue, and still I vomited. I vomited when I tried to swallow, vomited after I’d spat up. I kept heaving. I finally lay on my mattress, exhausted and watched the water stains on the ceiling. My tears ran into my ears and blocked them. I sat up and went to the bathroom to wash my face with cold water. I tried again. First I rinsed the pellet, and then I oiled it with palm oil and slipped it into my mouth.
For more information, visit www.SefiAtta.com.
__________________________
Everything good comes
as Sefi Atta
Written by Adaure Achumba
In a Q&A session with Sefi Atta, NE gets some insight into her life, mind and book: what she thinks about being labeled a Feminist, growing up both Christian and Muslim, and Fela’s influence on her writing.
African literature is often riveted with poignant accounts of rich cultural and historical heritage and, likewise, the monstrosity of political strife and human rights abuse. For many years, albeit centuries, African storytellers have rendered tales of brevity, romance, tragedy, slavery and freedom. These manifested in rapturous folklores laced with intellectual dexterity have been told in the waning hours of the day against the backdrop of an African moonlit night. Several award winning writers have used this to their advantage and successfully transformed elements of oral tradition into world class literature.
Despite their achievements, few have yet to delve into the political stagnation of women in Africa's ultra patriarchal societies. The plight of the African woman is left desolate in the annals of history as Africans themselves continue to grapple with democracy and strive for social and economic freedom.
In recent years, however, some African writers of the feminine persuasion have begun, and persistently, to toggle on the ear lobes of the world. For those who care to listen, or read, as the case may be, these writers are commanding the attention of readers and literary societies across the globe. Their works are fast becoming a testament to the fact that Africa is a fertile ground, pregnant with stories and writers waiting for a chance to tell them.
One of such is Nigeria’s Sefi Atta. In her recent work titled ‘Everything Good Will Come’, a page turner, Atta dares to lend a voice to women within a sexist African society. Her book also serves a nostalgic reminder of how life used to be in old time Lagos - a bustling African metropolis, nestled along the south west coast of a politically unstable Nigeria.
Published in October 2004, Atta's highly acclaimed debut novel is a tale of two girls, neighbors, who fast become like sisters from being best friends. The narrator Enitan, and bi-racial Sheri, are sheltered in their affluent boarding schools and elite life along the lagoons of Lagos Island. Neither of which is able to protect or even prepare them for the harsh realities they are bound to face. As their stories progress they learn a legion of life’s lessons which eventually enables them to morph into wiser and stronger women.
Atta's book is not only witty and intense, it is sassy and brass, funny and sarcastic, as it is tear jerking. It puts the reader directly in the plot with the characters, and it is most enjoyable if you have been to the places, know about the things and bore witness to some of the events and happenings she writes about.Nigerian Entertainment: What you are writing about now or publishing next and when will it be released?
Sefi Atta: I am working on my second novel, Swallow. It is about a Lagos woman who is recruited as a drug mule during the War Against Indiscipline years of the mid-1980s.NE: What books are you reading or have you read recently?
SA: Nurrudin Farah’s Links, Milan Kundera’s Identity and Toni Morrison’s Love.NE: What are your all time favorite books and who is your favorite author?
SA: I can read Camus’ L’etranger over and over. Grace Paley is my favorite writer. She has a unique voice.
Sefi at a Reading in Abuja.- Photo by Jeremy WeateNE: Is that who you draw your influence from?
SA: How I wish! No, I just enjoy her short stories. Anyway, I have come to realize that I am more influenced by music and lyrics than I am by prose. In that respect Fela is probably the greatest influence on me. He was an amazing storyteller. I am always reluctant to talk about him because my husband, Gboyega, is a Ransome-Kuti and I know how much the family respects Fela’s memory, but I really did not begin to appreciate Fela’s genius until I began to write. His chronicles of Nigeria’s post-independence history are the most accessible to Nigerians. He was serious and at the same time playful.
NE: What led you into writing and how did you decide it's what you want to do?
SA: I took a course in creative writing in 1995 while I was working as an accountant in New York. In 1997, my family moved to Mississippi and I could no longer work as an accountant so I began to write.NE: Tell me what it was like for you growing up in Nigeria?
SA: Wonderful. We lived off Queen’s Drive minutes away from Five Cowry Creek. We had dogs, geese and chickens running around our backyard and a vegetable patch that used to flood during the raining season. It was one adventure after the other and indoors we had a library of Jane Austen, Huck Finn and other books. I took the usual piano, ballet and tennis lessons that my friends were taking and did not excel in any. I couldn’t be bothered to practice. My father was a Moslem and my mother is a Christian, so on Fridays I had Quoranic lessons with a Syrian family that lived down the road, and on Sundays I went to church. I attended Corona School in Ikoyi and after school played with kids in my neighborhood and of course we fought too. We had gangs and went from house to house by bicycle. It was a regular childhood until my father died when I was eight. That was a difficult time. He was the head of the Civil Service and I found out that he had died from a newspaper headline. My family moved to another neighborhood by the Lagos Lagoon. The place was full of expats. Our neighbors were French and Austrian and their children didn’t speak English. We loved our new house though. Our garden led right into the lagoon and my mother had a speedboat. She would take us to a remote beach called Olomo Meta. It was great. She also began to travel overseas with us. You can imagine a Yoruba woman with five children in tow showing up at a bullfight in Seville or wherever. People just used to stare at us. My mother gave me that sense of being a citizen of the world. Roots and wings. She was very proud of Yoruba culture and embraced all cultures.NE: Where did you attend school, live and how much of that makes/made for good writing material?
SA: I was in Queen’s College from age 10 to 14 and then I went to Millfield, a prep school in England. I got my bachelor’s degree from Birmingham University in 1985 and my MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles in 2001. Queen’s College shows up in Everything Good. The school was a writer’s dream. We were girls from different parts of Nigeria, from different backgrounds, sharing dormitories, all of us locked up in that enclave in Yaba. The stories that I have from QC are too sweet for words. I intend to write a novel based on my experiences there. I have written short stories set in England. I have also written short stories set in the United States, mostly in Mississippi where I now live. Mississippi is also a writer’s dream. All my experiences have been useful.NE: What is your ultimate goal in life and with your work?
SA: I am 42 and have come to accept that I am not in control. My mantra is ‘Thy will be done.’ I try to do the best work that I can and remind myself to be a better mother and person. That’s about it.NE: Where do you see yourself in the future?
SA: I keep having visions of a yellow house by the sea. God only knows what the image means but I know I am in that house, my hair is completely white, I am still writing and wherever life has taken me I am content.NE: What future plans do you have for your career? Is writing your only career now?
SA: I tried sticking to a plan for two years and I was miserable. I was submitting work to the right journals and all that. It was awful. I stopped enjoying writing and the quality of my work went downhill. Now, I am back to enjoying my work. My only plan is to continue to. I write the stories that I want to write, teach what I want to teach, when I want to teach. When opportunities come to travel for readings or conferences I take them if I want to. I prefer to be private about money, but I am in a unique position as a Nigerian writer because I do not depend on the publishing industry for my income. I am very grateful for that and it frees me creatively.NE: What writers and works have you been compared with? Are those comparisons realistic and what do you say to people who compare you to other writers?
NE: Any plans to go back to live in Nigeria?
SA: Buchi Emecheta, who was generous enough to blurb my novel. Purple Hibiscus and Ake. The comparisons are inevitable. I recognize them for what they are and if necessary I reject them. The more that Nigerians discover my work, the less they compare me to other writers.
SA: Sure. Nigeria is home.NE: What writers do you recommend or who amongst your writing peer should readers watch out for?
SA: All the writers that I have read: Helon Habila, Chimamanda Adichie, Tade Ipadeola, Chris Abani, Chika Unigwe, Toyin Adewale, Akin Adesokan, Unoma Azuah and Lola Shoneyin. Lola Shoneyin was the first of my peers that I read and her work encouraged me to write. I hope I am not leaving anyone out.NE: What advice do you have for aspiring writers, African writers most especially?
NE: How has living in the Diaspora helped with your writing career?
SA: Read read read, write write write, and set your mind to Africa. I tell myself that every day. Fela sang those words and I did not understand them when I first heard them. I thought his message was too idealist, too Pan African and 60s. As a Nigerian writer published in the West I fully understand what he meant now. Publishers here will colonize your creative energy if you allow them. You might end up doing the native dance to please them. The ooga-booga. They will fit you into their nice little African slot and pat you on the head so long as you keep churning out the stories that they want to read. I am very serious about storytelling and respect our tradition, which dates back centuries, so I resist.
SA: I would probably be an investment banker if I were living in Nigeria, and living overseas has helped me to get published. It has come at a price though. My stories published here are mostly about protagonists who are victims in some way. No one seems to want to publish my stories about privileged Nigerians. That tells me a lot about their preferences. Granted middleclass and elite Nigerians are a minority, but why are they so absent from our recent literature, except when they serve as a symbol of corruption? It is a shame. You only have to look at the bios of Nigerian writers published overseas to figure out that we have hardly suffered any oppression in our lives and yet our stories of oppression are so popular. I get emails from aspiring writers based in Nigeria. They are writing about ordinary everyday events in interesting ways.NE: What ways do you think the literary/ publishing industry in Nigeria and Africa can improve and assist with the development of new talent?
SA: By educating, informing writers and providing opportunities to publish. By insisting on standards. My Nigerian publishers, Farafina, are doing just that.NE: How does family life play into your career as a writer? How do you joggle being a mother and a writer?
SA: You should speak to my daughter, Temi. She would most likely say that I am a good mom and a great cook, but she is a kind girl and knows no other mother. She has eaten my jollof rice, pounded yam and okra and spaghetti Bolognese most of her life. She thinks these are the options.
Sefi Atta at a Jazzhole reading in Lagos. Photo by Tope KogbeNE: What awards have you received and for what writings?
SA: Last year I was awarded PEN International’s David TK Wong Prize for an unpublished story. In 2003, I won a prize from Red Hen Press for a published story--Red Hen Press publishes Los Angeles Review. In 2002, I won a prize from Zoetrope for another unpublished story. I have also won a couple of prizes from the BBC for plays and have been a finalist or short listed for Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Award, Fish International Short Story Prize, South’s Million Writer’s Award, the BBC Short Story Competition and Commonwealth Short Story Competition. My novel Everything Good Will Come was a finalist for the Macmillan Writers Prize for Africa and the Independent Publishers Book Award.NE: When did you start writing the book Everything Good Will Come? What inspired you to write that and is it reflective of your own personal life in any way?
SA: I wrote my first line in 1997. I had not read a story about a Nigerian woman like myself, born in the 1960s and living in Lagos. Mine is the first that I am aware of. The idea for the novel began with an image of the two girls, Enitan and Sheri, by the Lagos Lagoon and then I just discovered more and more about them as I wrote. I drew on my personal life to get an accurate sense of place. I wanted a realistic portrayal of Lagos. In my novel the city never overshadows the characters.NE: Everything Good Will Come as I have read in various reviews is called African feminist literature. What do you say to that? Is that label 'feminist' positive or negative?
SA: I now say so what if it is feminist? People keep asking me to own up to being a feminist writer. If I were ugly, would they ask if I write from an ugly person’s point of view? I’m tired of all that labeling.NE: What does the main character Enitan Taiwo represent? Where did you draw elements for her character?
SA: You can see where she gets her attitude. I am not as confrontational as Enitan though. I don’t have the energy. Enitan is like a lot of Nigerian women I know. She is intelligent, headstrong and yet vulnerable because she needs approval from the society. She is constantly trying to free herself from the ‘good girl good family’ yoke.NE: Sheri's character is a very familiar one to Nigerians. There's an Ibo/Yoruba/Edo girl like her in many upwardly mobile neighborhoods. Why did you choose to use the 'tragic-mulatto' element for her character?
SA: I did not. Nigeria does not have the same racial history as a country like the United States for instance so that would be inaccurate. Sheri does not even consider herself biracial. She is not confused about her identity and I know a few women like her. She is the equivalent of the blonde blue-eyed girl, the beauty ideal in Nigeria, whether or not we care to admit it. She was an interesting character to explore.NE: The poignant illustration of relationship building, whether marital, social or professional is a mainstay throughout the book. The challenges faced by the characters reflect much of Nigerian society. What is your aim in writing about them and why did you use certain illustrations (e.g. Enitan and her father, Mrs. Taiwo's religion, her marriage, Sheri and her sugar-daddy husband etc)?
SA: I am always searching for dimension and a sense of perspective. My curiosity draws me in many directions and the trick is to stay in control of the story. All these characters and their interactions with one another make for a richer and more complex story.NE: The later portion of your book dwells on Nigeria's political instability and social injustice. How important are these themes in your writing?
SA: So long as there is political instability and social injustice my writing will reflect that. I do not set out to write about any themes though. My main characters take center stage but I just had to comment on their silence and apathy during the Abacha regime.NE: Your life in Nigeria and the UK is a big influence in writing this book? I don't see any elements form life in America. Is that missing on purpose or is it subtly implied and how?
SA: Yes, it is missing because Enitan did not live in America and I was not writing about myself.NE: What does the title 'Everything Good Will Come' mean? What other titles did you consider?
SA: My editor chose the title. It comes from a declaration that Enitan makes at the end of the novel: a daa, meaning it will be good. It is a Yoruba __expression, a blessing. The title still sounds strange to me but the one I had ‘A State of Silence’ was decidedly lame. I had worse titles that I cannot share.NE: The book has been received well abroad. How has the reception been at home and what sorts of questions and reviews about the book have you gotten from home based journalists or women readers?
SA: The response in Nigeria has been amazing. The Nigerian edition was published in October last year and Farafina are ready for their second print run. I’m thrilled for them because they have been so supportive. I am also grateful that people back home are reading and enjoying my novel. Getting their attention means a lot to me. One of the highlights of my book tour was being the special guest at the Committee For Relevant Art’s Elder’s Forum. I was honored to be there. You should have seen me in my big sneakers doing my ‘lady dance’ with Fatai Rolling Dollar.During my book tour I had a few anti-feminist critics and they got quite shrill, but I always had women who stood up and shouted them down. Only once did I have to defend myself when I’d had enough of alpha males castigating me. One or two reviewers have done that too. They are very angry about Enitan’s commentary on the sexism in Nigerian society. I have had to stop reading reviews like that because they only make me want to write an even more radical story.
I have also had reviewers--not home-based, because the Nigerian edition is slightly different--who have commented on my translations of Yoruba expressions in the US and UK editions. They say I wrote with a western audience in mind. Well, hell yeah. I want people in the West to read my work. I was in India last month and I want my work to be read there and throughout the East. My novel is about to be released in South Africa and I want people there to read it too. If I explain this or that about Nigeria I am just being helpful. Kundera writes whole paragraphs about history or the meanings and origins of words. He is very much aware of a world audience and I appreciate that. I translate Yoruba expressions to English because I would simply skip over passages written in any language that I don’t understand. So if five words in my book are compromised, I can live with that. The integrity of my story is still intact and Nigerians tell me that it is an authentic story that they can relate to. That’s exactly what I wanted. I have also had reviewers--not home-based, because the Nigerian edition is slightly different--who have commented on my translations of Yoruba expressions in the US and UK editions. They say I wrote with a western audience in mind. Well, hell yeah. I want people in the West to read my work. I was in India last month and I want my work to be read there and throughout the East. My novel is about to be released in South Africa and I want people there to read it too. If I explain this or that about Nigeria I am just being helpful. Kundera writes whole paragraphs about history or the meanings and origins of words. He is very much aware of a world audience and I appreciate that. I translate Yoruba expressions to English because I would simply skip over passages written in any language that I don’t understand. So if five words in my book are compromised, I can live with that. The integrity of my story is still intact and Nigerians tell me that it is an authentic story that they can relate to. That’s exactly what I wanted.++++++++++
To learn more about Sefi Atta and her writing visit her website www.sefiatta.com. Look out for her new book 'Swallow' in the Fall of 2006.(Igo Wordu contributed to this article)
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