AFTER 10 days of toil, the 2013 Creative Writing Workshop organised by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Farafina Trust and supported by Nigerian Breweries Plc ended on a high with a literary evening at Oriental Hotel, Lagos on Friday, August 16.
Though 22 writers and their facilitators did all the work during the workshop, it was everybody that joined them in unwinding thereafter. And rather than wait till the end of the evening to entertain guests, organisers feted them to tasty finger foods and chilled drinks first.
Having taken care of matters of the belly, the intellectual part of the evening kicked off with a speech by the Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Nicolaas Vervelde.
“The creative writing workshop has become a major chapter in our corporate social responsibility initiatives. Through this platform driven by Chimamanda Adichie, Nigeria’s award winning writer and Director of Farafina Trust, Nigerian Breweries and Farafina Trust have within the last five years helped in no small way to discover and sharpen literary skills in Nigeria. We are indeed very proud of Chimamanda Adichie, a proud and accomplished African. We commend her and Farafina Trust for their contributions to make many dreams come true,” Vervelde said.
He also touched on other corporate social responsibility initiatives of the company and reiterated his belief that the workshop was meeting its objective of improving the skills of Nigerian writers.
“I believe our mutual objective is being realised as the creative writers’ workshop continues to attract huge interest within and outside Nigeria. I am also personally delighted to be part of this initiative which places premium on creativity through literary arts,” he added.
Kenyan writer and founding editor of Kwani?, Binyavanga Wainaina; Norwegian politician turned writer, Aslak Sira Myhre who is also the director of the House of Literature in Oslo; medical doctor and new chief operating officer of Kachifo Books, Eghosa Imasuen joined Chimamanda in facilitating the workshop.
And what a proud moment it was for the 20 Nigerian, one Kenyan and an American that participated in the training as Chimamanda called them out to collect their certificates. She had kind words to say about them all, a development which later drew a question from Sola Balogun, Arts Editor of the Sun Newspapers who appeared disapproving of her ringing endorsements of the participants.
Chimamanda didn’t fail to thank her co-facilitators, NB Plc and her brother Okey, the man who makes the workshop tick before the interactive session, an integral part of the workshop since its commencement in 1999.
Unsurprisingly, most of the questions were directed at Chimamanda, who as usual showed that she has a good head on her shoulders with her answers.
She, Imasuen and Wainaina simply said yes to the first question, do you think literature can empower Nigerian women without expatiating. Myhre also said yes but added that literature empowers all women and everybody. He said there is evidence of this in the female characters in Chimamanda’s works but that literature does not empower by shouting or violence but through reasoning.
Asked how much inspiration she took from the late Chinua Achebe, influences and her positive endorsements of the workshop participants, Chimamanda said: “Chinua Achebe was an icon; Chinua Achebe was important to me because his work gave me permission to write. Until I read Chinua Achebe I didn’t know that I could write about my own reality so I consider him the writer whose work is most important to me.
“But it is difficult for me to talk about influence because I’m not consciously aware of what my influences are. I think I am influenced by everything I’ve read. Chinua Achebe is very important to me as are many other writers like Flora Nwapa, Ama Atta Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta and Gabriel Okara. There are many writers who are important to me.
“What I’ve discovered in these years I have done this, often the person who comes into the workshop with the best entry, is not the person who then goes on to produce the best work after the workshop. Though you seem to be a bit disapproving of the praise that they have received, part of writing is that one requires a certain validation and I think this is what this workshop provides. So that they then go on to continue their writing. There is enormous potential amongst these 22 people.”
Another question for Chimamanda was whether her inability to cope with the sciences made her dump Medicine for Communication and Political Science and how long it took to produce her first book. Was she strong all the way or she felt like quitting at some points?
Taking the second part of the question first, she said: “No, I was not strong all the way. I haven’t met the writer who is entirely certain of what they are doing until they finishes. I think uncertainty is part of the creative process.
My first novel took about a year and half; the second one took about five years...The idea is that you make it matter to you; you make time for it, commit to it and keep doing it. Then, you have to be prepared to fall many times but the whole idea is that you get up and keep doing it because it matters to you. That’s how it has been for me. All of my books have been the same; the process has been the same. I have never been entirely strong the whole way.
“I can show you my science results, if you like. I actually passed, very well. I left the study of medicine because it didn’t seem right for me. I think that medicine is a noble profession but I also think you have to be really emotionally invested in it and I wasn’t. I was doing very well in school but during lectures I would be writing poetry at the back of my note book, so I knew that was a sign that medicine was not for me.
“I also happen to have parents who were very kind to me but I also have to say there is already a doctor in the family so it was like it’s the last daughter, let her go and do what she likes. Maybe that’s why. I think that leaving medicine was the best decision that I made. It made me leave something I wasn’t emotionally invested in.”
Would she include poetry in the workshop, another person asked. “I am not a poet. I have a lot of respect for poetry but I am not a poet. I can only teach what I know so I don’t think that I would include poetry in the workshop anytime soon,” she responded.
The evening eventually ended with a performance by KC of ‘Limpopo’ fame.
No comments:
Post a Comment