By Henry Akubuiro
Odili Ujubuoñu straddles the world of creative writing, advertising and public service. A novelist and a British Council/Lancaster University Cross-border alumnus, his novels – Pregnancy of the Gods (2006), Treasure in the Winds (2008), Pride of the Spider Clan and Crows of the Yellow Stream – have won prizes and enjoyed wide readership and acclaim. He won the 2006 ANA/Jacaranda Prize for Prose and was on the Daily Sun’s Bestseller list for the same year. His second book, Treasure in the Winds (2008), was a nominee for the 2008 Nigerian Prize for Literature, sponsored by the NLNG and won the 2008 ANA/Chevron Prize on Environmental Issues. Pride of the Spider Clan was nominated for the 2012 Wole Soyinka Prize for Africa and the winner of 2012 ANA Prose Prize. He has read to special literary audiences in such historical locations as Groot Constantia, Cape Town, South Africa, and Schwetzingen Palace Garden Baden Wurttemberg, Germany, and many locations across Nigeria.
He is the founder of Brande Aristotle Limited, a marketing communications brand consultancy, and currently serves as the Managing Director/CEO of Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency (ANSAA). The authour shares light on the cultural import of his writings, his affinity with Chris Okigbo and the abundant opportunities for contemporary Nigerian writers that should be exploited.
You described your award-winning novel. Pregnancy of the Gods, as a neo-colonial product. Can you put this in a proper perspective?
Pregnancy of the Gods will be 20 years next year. The world that inspired the book has changed a great deal. Even the narrative and social constructs that shaped the story have equally seen shifts. Having said that, the story’s audience still exists, its ambition is still real and the opportunity that the narrative presents is still open for exploration. Nobody can tell your story better than yourself. The African story has not been scratched, yet many of us believe there are too many already. Ignoring our story in an epoch when we are losing our villages, our griots, our culture to either new ones or bad copies of the original is dangerous.
The question is how much of our original African sensibilities have been recorded in the tales told since colonialism? What we have are the morsels delivered by the early writers. Followups have been stained by the traumatic experiences of wars, conflicts, bad governments and themes that are pleasing to the Western audience. We have been busy with stories borne out of the challenges that our arrested development presented us with. These have stifled deep mining of the authentic emotions of our culture. We have neglected core stories of every day lives of the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Africa.
The writers with these experiences are dying off, the memories of the living are fading away and the young and active are distracted by numerous opportunities to explore emerging themes and concepts that are pleasing to the paying Western audience. Even among us, African writers, we are becoming shy and reluctant to critically interrogate these themes. That’s why I still think, Pregnancy of the Gods is relevant after almost 20 years.
You hold the view that African literature is suffering from a different kind of colonialism. How does this affect artistic production by Nigerian writers operating from different locations?
I honestly don’t know if I still hold the same view today when the pressure of bread and butter is pushing us into “Japanomics.” Apart from that, there has been a lot of realignments propelled by the fast development in technology within the last decade. The walls of distance have been broken by technology. The world of culture is gradually being lived also by technology. The levels of interaction in real time through video and online interface have also soared. If you are following political trends across the globe, you’d notice that even age-old ideologies and alliances are being questioned and friendships among nations are being roundly realigned. As cultures collide through forceful and willful migrations, our writing in a post-globalisation era cannot be the same. Today’s writing can only remain authentic by retaining the weight of the past, the ripples of the present and trusting the future with the help of technology.
Treasure in the Winds and Pride of the Spider Clan are intertwined narratives. What made you to sustain the narrative momentum around a similar construct?
The “ofo” or “sacred flute” is the essence and the common artery that runs through the three books, namely — Pregnancy of the Gods, Treasure in the Winds and Pride of the Spider Clan. It was an ambitious project that I undertook as a young writer in my search for a means to communicate the values of Africa’s golden past to the young and present generation without the boredom of the classroom. It was an adventure story woven around myths. The quest for the magical solution to problems has been with us for all ages. It has driven stories from folklore to modern novels. I think that was what we explored in the context of historical fiction.
What happened to “Return to Idoto” series?
Nothing bad happened to “Return to Idoto.” James Eze and I only paused the last edition, which was supposed to hold in August 2024 because of insecurity in the area. If you have attended Idoto, you’ll agree that it’s a spectacular event that happens outdoors with hundreds of participants. It is a poetry festival that involves the whole village trasversing a distance of about three square kilometres and can best be be executed in a calm, secure and free environment. As soon as security is restored, we will commence the series. We can’t abandon it. Neither James nor I chose Idoto. The river chose us…, the festival chose us. We will continue to answer the call to hold the celebration for as long as we can. Don’t forget it’s a triennial event. We only missed it once and if it is convenient before August this year, we will hold it.
What would you consider the greatest takeaway from the Idoto project?
It remains one of the few writing or writers’ festivals that unite the writer, the culture and the people. Idoto enables the intellectuals to pontificate, the village minstrels exhibit their raw talents and the writers to celebrate their arts in a real geographical space, culling up memories of greatness and inspiring great works of the future. Christopher Okigbo, as a poet, was a great gift to African Literature. What he wrote, how he wrote, how he lived and how he died will continue to inspire greatness in the art of poetry and living in Africa and beyond.
You head the Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency (ANSAA). How has this portfolio challenged you to bring out the artist in you?
Thank you, Henry. Heading the Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency is quite challenging because the public sector is not the same as the private sector, where I have practised advertising all my life. Apart from the challenge the work environment poses, one truly faces a major one as an artist committed to improving society and setting exemplary standards.
In the course of my duty, I had to first, get the place organised to fit into the Governor’s vision of making Anambra State a livable and prosperous destination. We are building the agency from ground up and ensuring that all stakeholders are extracting value in very satisfactory manner.
Our commitment to improving the ease of doing business, media structures, cityscape and industry standards is already being recognised within the state and in the Out-of-Home Advertising industry in Nigeria. It is not in my place to say if I am successful or not but I believe time and circumstances will be the ultimate judge of what has happened in my time.
Your last novel, Crows of the Yellow Stream, held so much promise when it was released. Has it travelled as you expected?
The answer, in simple terms, is yes. A bold YES indeed. Crows of the Yellow Stream is a book that I remain emotionally attached to. It’s a baby I believe would walk it’s own walk in its own time. It’s one of the few mythical gifts I received from Idoto. Being able to finish the book was one of my happiest achievements because I had to give up my job to give it the wings to fly. Having said, I believe that the greatest success for the writer of any book is finishing the book, getting it published and watching people read and react to the story. The great leaps of grabbing awards, touching the skies and kissing the four poles of the earth are left for providence to determine. We all know that some books are more than “now” that they are for “always.” I have a feeling that “Crows of the Yellow Stream” falls into this category.
Folklore runs through all your fictional works, what’s the thinking behind it?
It’s a less crowded space. It’s a bit more difficult, because you’ll have to rely on research, borrow language and work within a paradigmatic path to make your tales believable and sustainable. I kind of like the challenge the opportunity it gives me to explore the unexplored roads of silence.
You are also an advert guru, who is schooled in promotion strategies. It seems Nigerian writers are lacking that business cutting edge, how can we make books contribute more than it is to the creative economy?
Henry, every year writers, unlike any other profession, have the opportunity of their art being discussed across different platforms and media thanks to the Nigeria Prize for Literature sponsored by NLNG. This is the biggest form of advertising we have as writers. However, if you mean promoting our works as individuals, there’s no better time, no greater offering for self promotion than today’s New Media offers. Every writer that has the energy and passion for his or her art can attain whatever level of success they seek because of the availability of cheap, easy, affordable media.
With the emergency of AI, writing had even become easier for those who are ready to improve their skills. Their are brilliant AI apps that edit and perfect your manuscript in the shortest and cheapest possible way.
All we need as writers is to dream up those deep and original ideas that will make our story simple, accessible, original and authentic, then apply the easily available technology to perfect our writing and promote it with as much media platforms as we can, then success will be ours. You don’t need an advertising guru to do that for you.
All you need is to first convince yourself that what you need is to make money from your books. There’s a caveat here. Not every writer is quick to see their writing as a business. For some, it’s their own monuments created for timelessness. They truly may not see value in self promotion. But may see value in the joy of birthing their literary offering.