That. Is. UNAFRICAN!

The first time I pitched my first novel’s title to a crowd other than the multiple personalities in my mind, was to my fellow book club members. They seemed furious. “Unacceptable!” they cried out. “Not another Nigerian-themed book!” I waited for the pitchforks and the flamed torches, and for them to hoist me up and scream “Burn him at the stake!” Thankfully, they did not do that, and with a shaky smile, I tried to explain why my novel and its series is not just an African novel.

Africa, oh wonderful continent of ours. I have read of you: of your men, proud and majestic in their traditional attire and stature; of your women, strong and relentless even in the toughest of times; of your children, ever oblivious to the real world around them, playing with makeshift balls made of (banned) plastic bags or old, old pairs of socks. I have read your novels, plays, short stories, articles, all filled to the brink with your sempiternal beauty, and I have always felt proud. I have never stopped being proud, but then why would my favourite book be a novel about Slovenia and not about you?

In this previous post here, I explained that Veronika Decides to Die by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho is my favourite book. For those too busy or too lazy to click the above link, the post explains how the book reflects upon the hidden mental ails that a single person can go through, and matching them with what society expects or inflicts. I told one of my friends that Mr. Coelho does not write for a genre, but that he writes for a specific feeling and situation, and that the above book establishes that by enabling the evocation and understanding of such emotions within me, allowing me to learn how to accept and/or control them. Sadly, I have read only a handful of African novels that allow me to immerse myself into what Africa is without generalizing it, as Paulo Coelho centralizes a situation to one character.

So, what is Africa? Is it the undulating dunes of the Sahara? The mysterious peaks of the Pyramid of Giza? The mesmerizing Victoria Falls? The dense Congo rain-forest? Or is it the sight of the emaciated boy with an outstretched hand? The old, hard-faced man who turns out to be only twenty-three? The woman carrying her child by her side with breasts so flat that they look like stones hanging in pockets, as author Binyavanga Wainaina describes in his article How to Write About Africa? Is Africa only characterized by stories of colonization? Of African leaders who became the new oppressors, who used corruption as their new religion? Of “when will God come down and take us homes Oh”?

All I wanted was to dive into the thickest book with the deepest stories, and to disappear forever. I longed for the stories of when we were a strong people, bound together by love and loyalty and not by blood and labels. I thirsted for the rejuvenating tales of hope within the strife, of love within the war, of peace after the chaos. I wanted a story to talk to me and tell me it is okay to jump and shout, to sing and dance because it will not do to sit and look dejected. I wanted to be selfish and to have a story talk to me and to no one else.

Ironically, the name Orisha (otherwise written as Orisa or Orixa) translates into ‘Owners of the chi’ and we all know that the term 'chi' is not African, let alone Nigerian. I was intrigued by this, by the sharing of a universal meaning in different tongues, which in turn became a novel series that fuses all cultures to create a distinct one. The more I wrote, the more my true intentions emerged. Deep down was the desire to abolish all such labels. African. American. Asian. European. Why couldn’t we all just be humans first before we become everything else? Why couldn’t we all just step back and acknowledge that we are all contenders in the same game, and that we could all win if we saw beyond the colours of our skins and obsolete traditions?

This brings me to my main topic: publishing.

I had such wild dreams. Like Bilbo Baggins, I was going to go on an adventure beyond the walls that my country had created. I would go abroad and study for my Masters in I-don’t-know-what, working one side hustle as a Starbucks waiter and another as an article journalist because I needed the money to explore the Australian Outback during my holidays, which made no sense as I would be working two jobs. The truth is I never wanted to stay in Kenya. I never wanted to live and die in Africa. Perish the thought of publishing here! How would I be able to attend book signings if I was not even in the continent to attend them? How would I identify as an African literate if my works were not solely about Africa? And just as this thought surfaced, I came across this article that discussed what is meant by African literature. Is it literature written by Africans living in Africa? ...By Africans in diaspora? ...By just about anyone who decides to write about Africa from their own perspective?

I remember my parents once telling my siblings and I not to read any of those ‘bewitched’ Harry Potter books. I wondered whether they thought we would hold brooms between our legs and jump off the roof of our house saying, “It’s levi-O-sa, not levio-SA!” However, a recent meeting with an author showed that this might have been the case a few years back, when Kenya was still young, but it is not so now. There is a market saturated with the old tales of neo-colonialism, tribalism, and the everyday vices that we face. This market, he said, is in need of something new, something similarly thought-provoking but from a new angle. And now, I do not know whether I still want to publish abroad or from within.

Perhaps it is time Africa embraced its imagination and jumped back into the storytelling that would allow it to disappear, even if for just a few days. Perhaps it is time for us to turn away from the West and away from the past, and to look deep within ourselves and say “We will embrace the child in us”, the child with dreams of being authors, DJs, artists, footballers, musicians. Perhaps it is time to hold the broom between our legs and say Lamba lolo or something else similarly daft instead of leviosa, jump off our ledges of expectation, and to fly in the winds of imagination.

But first, I pose a question to you: what do you think, should I publish in Kenya, Africa, or abroad?

P.S: Feel free to leave a reply in the comments section below. They shall be featured in the next discussion on African literature and publishing, together with a possible discussion on the launch of Orisha.