By Henry Akubuiro
Literature goes beyond enthralling storylines and content. Style is what sets one writer apart from the other. It is the distinctive way a writer writes, using tone, syntax, narrative and other techniques.
Purple prose, which thrives on florid diction, is often hailed as an elegant art. But there is beauty, too, in simplicity, especially how sublime that simplicity is. Chinua Achebe’s early novels are remarkable for their simple style.
From the beginning to the end of his bestselling novel, Things Fall Apart, for instance, Achebe sticks to straightforward diction and simple sentence structures, creating a sense of formality. In keeping his language direct, Achebe imbues his prose with the feeling of neutral reportage.
This is what Bukar Usman, one of Nigeria’s most prolific writers, have in common with the legendary writer. “I write as I talk, or generally aim to do so. I hardly employ more words than are needed to express a meaning. I go straight to my point and make it as plainly as possible. And I like to write as I am conversing with my reader,” he declares in My Literary Journey.
Bukar Usman isn’t just a creative writer, folklorist, or nonfiction writer; he is also an essayist and public speaker who explores different forms of communication. As Usman tells us, it’s even more difficult to write in a simple style. Whenever he puts pen to paper, he has it at the back of his mind to be considerate of his audience “and the need to ensure that what I am writing should not be too difficult for the average reader to understand.”
One of the writers Usman admires is Ngugi wa Thiong’o. He explains: “The River Between (by the Kenyan author) is a classic example of writing that is lucid yet very forceful. Among other things, Ngugi realised his beautiful style through the use of simple words, short sentences and short paragraphs.”
However, as he tries to make his own writing simple, Usman realises that it is easier to talk plainly than to write plainly. “While writing, especially the first draft, there are words and phrases that come in the way —what you do not usually encounter in conversation,” he concedes.
In 1992, Usman began to write his first serious work, Hatching Hopes, an autobiography. Before then, he was mainly engaged in formal communication — seculars, memos, reports, speeches, etc. It was impersonal writing, replete with officialese.
But, in writing Hatching Hopes, he realised he would be talking to the public. That challenged him, without undermining the sacredness of his facts, to be imaginative. A reader who went through the first manuscript, Lamine Okion Ojigbo, noted instantly it was written in “plain, clear and easily understandable English”.
The author was to largely retain the conversational tone and simplicity of that first draft, even while reworking the manuscript. Since then, the conversational style has been influencing everything written by him, be it a short story or newspaper article.
Perhaps it’s in collecting folktales, modifying and publishing them that Usman has made the biggest impression in his flourishing writing career. Works, such as The Bride without Scars, The Stick of Fortune, and Girls in Search of Husbands, have become classics. In modifying an oral story, the writer doesn’t compromise with the style, however, though he may add creativity to it.
“Indeed, modifying an oral tale from its oral source and retelling it in writing in another language is as creative as any short story writing effort can be,” he says, adding, “Modification is not mere translation. It is a translation enhanced by additional information and the re-ordering of key elements of the original tale. Modification is an exercise in creative writing.”