Akala in Conversation at the Southbank Centre

L: Akala; R: Mustafa the Poet / Photo: Abundant Art

On 6 February, hip-hop artist and author Akala appeared at the Southbank Centre to launch the paperback release of The Dark Lady. I had left it too late to actually obtain a ticket for the live event as tickets sold out fast, so the next best thing was to buy a live stream which turned out to be as good, although I would have preferred to be there in person, especially as Akala's entrance caused a riotous and rippling applause from the audience!

Akala was joined in conversation with Canadian poet and singer, Mustafa, who was such a breath of fresh air to watch. Mustafa's perspective and questions to Akala were so nuanced and thoughtfully prepared on the novel's content about 'race', identity, class and society, that I witnessed an unforgettable dialogue between the two of them. It was like watching a good film; I was hooked from beginning to end!

Akala - Photo: The Times

Akala's debut novel for teens and young adults, The Dark Lady is a magic realism book about a young, Black, orphan boy called Henry, an outsider, a thief, a fifteen-year-old invested with superpowers, living in the streets of Elizabethan London, who is haunted by dreams of the mysterious Dark Lady. Inspired by Shakespeare, the novel refers to the Bard's Sonnets and attempts to paint a realistic picture of street life in Renaissance England. 

Akala - Photo: Ents 24

I mostly enjoyed hearing Akala discuss his writing process and how hard he found the task. Although Dark Lady is his debut novel, he had already written Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire (2018), a Sunday Times Bestseller non-fiction book that I really enjoyed reading and would definitely recommend. 

There are levels to this thing ...

Mustafa: "What were the challenges of moving into fiction and attempting to maybe draw a thread between Natives and your novel. How do you explore without losing the essence or the clarity that you write with in Natives?"

Akala: "As anyone who has ever written a book will know, brother, my whole definition of what I thought was hard work has been altered by these last three years working on these two books, and you're confronted by the fact that you realise you're no way as near as smart or as important as you thought you were when you were twenty-five ... I think about how difficult it was for me to write these two books and then I think about War and Peace, or Toni Morrison, or James Baldwin ... there's levels to this thing ... as a writer you realise just how difficult it is to complete a book that is even readable, forget good. Anyone who completes a readable book deserves a medal. 

I read Stephen King's book On Writing, and when he was talking about "I'm fifty books in and still, when I read my first draft I think which kind of idiot wrote this foolishness?" And I was, oh, thank God, it's not just me. The first draft I sent to my publisher, they could've legitimately slapped me. Part of this was feeling pressured to send in something; it wasn't really a draft, just a few words, and there was that one scene that was "sick" and they were like we know you can do it as this scene is "bad". 

And so I think the technical craft of learning to write a novel is like being the director, the actor, the editor, and the scriptwriter all in one. You've got to decide where the camera is positioned, you've got to decide when to cut from scene to scene, you've got to decide what angle the person sees the film from, you've got to inhabit the emotional universe of each of your characters to get the best out of them like a director does, you've also got to act and be the characters ... man, it's hard brother. And you finish it, and it's not even satisfying when you finish! 

Being a musician I spent the whole of last year driving around bumping these mixes and enjoying listening to my music. I don't think I've ever got that level of joy from my own books. You finish writing them and it's like a gaping wound in your soul. You ask yourself what am I going to do with the rest of my life. You feel distraught; there's this weird kind of melancholy. 

The process of research is wonderful, reading books, making notes — wonderful! Then you get down to writing — awful! Unbelievably hard, like training for the Olympics and then you come 75th! So I think authors are a bit pseudo-masochistic. 

Don't get me wrong, I still appreciated both of the processes. There is a very different creative headspace to writing a novel and writing a nonfiction book. I personally feel like I'm naturally better at nonfiction but that may just be because Natives was longer ago and so the distance of it being five years ago in 2017 makes me feel like the process was easier than it was at the time, because at the time I don't think I felt like that, whereas brother, I'll be honest, the novel was hard! 

I'm not going to sit here and pretend to you ... I think I did nine drafts of 80,000 words, that's work ... and I think it's a very good book, I'm very proud of it but it's not Toni Morrison and I'm not going to delude myself and think it is ... maybe one day in twenty more years I might get there. Writing a good novel is a huge achievement, but there are levels to this thing."

I totally understand how Akala felt ... when I independently published my first anthology, Brown Eyes, it felt as if I had given birth and then put my baby up for adoption! Very similar to the 'gaping wound in your soul'.

Tickets are available for the Akala in conversation livestream to watch online until 6 March - price £8.50. It's a must watch!!

Bernardine Everisto — Manifesto: On Never Giving Up

Image Source: Southbank Centre

On 3 October, I visited the Southbank Centre (again!). This time to see one of my favourite Black British female writers — Bernardine Evaristo. This event was held at Queen Elizabeth Hall, and I have to say that I really did prefer this space to the Royal Festival Hall. This time our seats were much closer to the stage.

For those of you who may not know, Bernardine Evaristo was the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize in 2019 for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. I say win; she shared the prize with Margaret Atwood, which Bernardine did not mind in the slightest since her fandom has expanded dramatically:

“I am happy to share it, especially with Margaret Atwood who is such an inspiring feminist, environmentalist, legendary writer and generous person. I certainly don’t feel that I’ve won half a prize. My name alone appears on the Booker plaque sent to me, just as hers will do the same.” (bevaritso.com) 

Image Source: thebookerprize.com

My friends and I thought she should and could have been awarded the whole prize especially as Margaret Atwood had already won the prize in 2000. 

Bernardine Evaristo On Writing / Vogue Visionaries / British Vogue / YouTube 2021

I've met Bernardine face-to-face a couple of times, most recently on 9 November 2019 at a Wasafiri event at the British Museum: 'An Island Full of Voices', where she was featured in a panel on authorial activism and literary collectives with Rachel Long, Nikesh Shukla and Susheila Nasta. I literally bumped into her in the ladies’ toilets! This was just after winning the Booker Prize, so I felt compelled to engage in a few quick words to congratulate her and remind her of the time in 1997 when she did a reading of her semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse, Lara, at the Centerprise Bookshop, an iconic community centre where she signed my copy. Sadly, Centerprise closed in 2012 after Hackney Council seized its premises after four decades, during which it was a hub for all things book-related. I facilitated a creative writing workshop there during the nineties as part of the Black Literature Development Agency.

Image Source: Amazon

I'd been looking forward to seeing and hearing Bernardine discuss her powerful new book Manifesto: On Never Giving Up ever since I heard of its existence when she shared the news on Twitter, especially as she would be in conversation with another one of my favourite Black British female writers, Afua Hirsch, also a journalist and broadcaster, known for her book Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging.

Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine started with a reading, some of which charted coming of age and leaving home after living within a family of eight children and two parents:

“When I think of it now, I landed very easily as an eighteen-year-old. I wanted a boyfriend, and had one; I needed a home, and walked into one; I needed a job, and found one. The only problem was that the boyfriend and I weren’t really at the nesting stage, but he was the easiest route out of my family home so what did I care? We briefly shared his room in this communal property until the one next door became available and I nabbed it. Finally, I had a room of my own. My first one. Up until this point, I had never slept a single night in a room on my own.”

I could so resonate with the yearning to leave home, although for me the motivation in the 1970s was because I wanted to return to a culturally diverse dynamic city to live in. After spending eight years living in Northamptonshire, due to no fault of my own, I strongly felt the need to move back to London to re-establish myself. 

L: Afua Hirsch R: Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine went on to tell us how her life of creativity, spanning four decades, included being an actress, playwright, teacher, and activist. Her book Manifesto provides a detailed account of how she lived her creative life, refusing to let any barriers get in her way, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to buy a copy, as I could totally relate. This idea of never giving up despite social issues such as race, class, feminism, sexuality, and ageing is all-inspiring and particularly relevant in the society we live in.

Booker Prize Winner, Bernardine Evaristo / Full Q & A at The Oxford Union, 2020

Manifesto is such an inspiring read. I love that Bernardine never gave up and kept going with her writing, amongst other pursuits. Her lifelong commitment to writing those original stories — novels, plays — that were often explorations and experimentations that took many years to write, was executed with a sheer determination and diligence that I admire and respect. So if you are creative and struggling with where you are at, you must keep on going, for you never know where your creativity may end up. You might one day win a prize! And even if that doesn't happen, it will be well worth the ride.

Bios:

Bernardine Everisto is the author of nine books and numerous other works that span the genres of verse fiction, short fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, journalism, and radio and theatre drama. Her writing and projects are based on her interest in the African diaspora. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London.

Afua Hirsch is a writer, journalist, and broadcaster. She is a columnist for The Guardian and appears regularly on the BBC, Sky News and CNN. Her first book, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, was awarded a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction.

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Chimananda Ngozi Adichie: Notes on Writing

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
Image Source:The Washington Post

What a few years it has been?! I hope you have kept well during such challenging times. I along with many people I know are now enjoying what was once taken very much for granted — socialising. Going out to a restaurant, theatre and jet-setting away on holiday have all taken on a new kind of norm.  Although we are still living with the global pandemic, I hope that the pandemic has now deferred to living with us, temporarily of course.

It is with much joy that I can actually write and share my recent literary shenanigans in the name of 'going out'. The last time I visited the Southbank Centre in south-east London was to see Benjamin Zephaniah. So when I heard that places and spaces were opening up again, I eagerly checked out the listings and found some gems.

On 24 September, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Notes on Writing was held at the Royal Festival Hall. Chimamanda is the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. On the night, she reflected on writing and storytelling in conversation with Yomi Adegoke. She also discussed her most recent book, Notes on Grief  written following the death of her father last summer.

Image Source: Blackwells

My friends and I arrived thirty minutes early to soak up the exciting atmosphere in the Royal Festival Hall's foyer. The time soon passed, and before we knew it, we were locating our seats.  Whilst keeping an eye on the two empty armchairs in readiness, I thought how lovely it was that we would soon be in the presence of such an iconic writer, who I've watched numerous times on YouTube. Now it was a whole different reality, I was going to see her in person.

As soon as 7.30 pm hit, Chimamanda and Yomi appeared and the whole audience woke up with welcoming roars and waves of applause. It was easy to get caught up in this momentous occasion and we enjoyed this warm rush of appreciation as much as she did.

Chimamanda started with a reading of chapter one from Notes on Grief.  I was struck by Chimamanda's openness and honesty as to how she felt, how angry she was that her family were getting prepared for her father's funeral proceedings:

"Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language."

L: Yomi Adegoke R: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It was as if relatives speaking their condolences added more to the pain, the reality and finality of her loss.  Chimamanda wanted time to stand still for a while rather than go through the motions of liaising with family and friends, although they meant well. She also had to mourn at a distance during the pandemic. During the lockdowns that spiralled like a domino effect around the world, Nigeria's airports weren't open, which meant her father's funeral was constantly being postponed.

Notes on Grief, written during the weeks and months following her father's death at the age of eighty-eight, is such a unique read. On the one hand, I can resonate with her words entirely, yet she brings a kind of nuance to the language, reflections that are dignified and spiritually nurturing. In terms of her openness, I don't think I have heard death spoken about in such a poignant and realistic way to such a large audience. I listened intently to her mixture of sadness and humour at the way she wanted to resist dealing with grief itself, seeing it as some kind of 'performative' action required of her:

"Grief is not gauzy; it is substantial, oppressive, a thing opaque. The weight is heaviest in the mornings, post-sleep: a leaden heart, a stubborn reality that refuses to budge. I will never see my father again. Never again."

Notes on Grief is a wonderful tribute to Chimamanda's father, James Nwoye Adichie, who was Nigeria's first professor of statistics.  Having now read a substantial amount, I found the book's structure of short, almost self-contained chapters works particularly well. It's as if grief can be divided into bite-sized chunks. Less is more.  The book isn't just for readers who have lost loved ones. Readers of Chimamanda's newest creation will not be disappointed, as the story is a universal one. 

Bios:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She has written novels: Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014). Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017), Zikora (2020) and Notes on Grief (2021). In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur 'Genius' Grant.

Yomi Adegoke is a journalist for British Vogue, The Guardian and The i Newspaper. In 2018, she co-authored the book Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible with Elizabeth Uviebinene, for which she was named a Marie Claire Future Shaper and was awarded the Groucho Maverick Award. She is also a trustee of Arts Emergency and a Forbes 30 Under 30 2021 honouree.