Canada-based academic, playwright and author, Soji Cole, is the 2018 recipient of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited-sponsored Nigeria Prize for Literature. He tells OGHENOVO EGODO-MICHAEL about his career and other issues
You are an academic, playwright and author. How do you juggle all three aspects of your career and give them your best, without neglecting any of them?
First, I don’t categorise myself as a career writer because I don’t earn my living substantially from writing. Writing is a tedious terrain when it comes to the issue of subsistence, and I don’t think any writer wants to go hungry. I have focused on academics for a decade now as a career but I’m unsure if I am as attracted to it as I am to writing. It is a complex introspective battle that I have to deal with all the time. What I do is to divide my time between the trades. When I do one, I prod myself to forget that I am into the other, so as to have maximum focus. The strength from one could help the other as well as destabilise it. Understanding that makes me negotiate my way, almost seamlessly, without letting any suffer.
In 2018, you received the NLNG Prize for Literature worth $100,000. How has this achievement contributed to the growth of your career?
Unfortunately, the hype that accompanies the prize does not automatically translate into career growth. The money also does not turn one into a millionaire. The recipient of the prize needs to keep working to improve and justify the award, and move further ahead. A year after the award, another recipient is announced and the hype is gone for the former. What remains is the question: ‘what next’? So, what next for me after the NLNG Prize? Well, I paused my academic career and chose to lend myself to further education. I moved from being a university lecturer with a PhD in Nigeria to sitting in the classroom as a student in Canada. That was how I chose to advance myself, and the NLNG award served as a good prompter to this quest.
Creative activities such as writing require a lot of attention. How have you been able to achieve that amidst doing other things?
There is a game I used to play with my ‘drama creative writing’ students when I was at the University of Ibadan. In eight years, no student got to the apex of the game. It was my systematic way of showing them how writers need to manage their creativity in the midst of chaos. As a creative writer, I have an opinion that all the things one does that take away attention from one’s writing is chaos. Writers don’t run away from chaos; they negotiate it. And, that’s what I do. There is no prescriptive way of getting the attention one deserves when one writes. Each writer works with their gifted nuances. Some will choose to ‘run away’ to silent places. Some will write in rowdy environments. Some look for nature. I just try to take advantage of things or situations that will bring my characters to life. I develop some of my dialogues or storylines in the most unlikely places. Then, I always seek less distractive times to put the stories together. In other words, I generate most of my ideas in chaotic periods, then lay them down when I have ample mental serenity.
Your research papers are majorly centered around drama therapy, trauma studies and cross-cultural performance researches. What is the reason behind that?
I was a Fulbright Fellow at a university in the United States between 2014 and 2015. My host university had a college of theatre, drama and dance, but the most vibrant unit in the college was the drama therapy programme. My host professor was the drama therapy professor. I felt it was a good opportunity to learn something new in the world of theatre, so I dived into it. I had done a previous PhD that engaged the study of trauma in drama and film, and my extensive travelling got me interested in cross-cultural performance research. Most of those who trained our generation in theatre studies and performance practice at the University of Ibadan already had all the accolades from the regular theatre areas that we are used to. It was like they had done all the great works there had to be done, and we had to foray into new areas if we were ever going to make names for ourselves. I felt it was a good idea to delve into those areas that were still in their emergent states in Nigeria.
What is the reason behind some of your satirical writings, such as ‘Embers’?
Nigeria is the reason behind my writings. I guess most Nigerian writers turn into some form of satire as a way to condense their anger towards the political and leadership failure of our country. Nigerian writers have been doing that for a long time. I wrote most of my books with clear expression of frustration with the Nigerian nation. Having lived outside of Nigeria for three years now— the longest time so far in my life— my anger towards our leaders has surged immeasurably.
What notable experiences did you encounter growing up in Mushin (Lagos State) that fuel your writing?
When people talk about Mushin Oloosa, they relate hooliganism to the town. I think things have evolved and many good things have come out of Mushin. I have met a lot of successful people who were born and bred there. What the town ingrained in us was the ‘never-say-die’ mentality; the ability to push on and see great vision ahead. Back then, Mushin was a town that revelled on street life. That was where most lessons of life were taught. I learnt from the streets. I had close-knit encounters with the old, the young, peddlers of all kinds, family, strangers, vagrants and courtesans. The streets connected everyone. The biggest lesson I took out, and which symbolically reflects in all my writings is that, at the end of the day, we are all humans.
How do you deal with writer’s block as an author?
I have never had to deal with one, so I don’t know how to deal with it. Maybe, I don’t encounter it because I am a strong believer in procrastination when it comes to creative writing. I believe that one should write when one is ready to write. When one writes and gets tired, one should rest. When one writes and don’t feel like going back to what one has written for some time, one should stay away.
Which writers did you enjoy reading their works while growing up?
I am still growing up, but I’ll assume that the question is about my love for literature when I was younger. I remember I was in love with D.O. Fagunwa, Chinua Achebe (Chike and the River), Enid Blyton, lots of books in the Pacesetters series, James Hadley Chase, Mills and Boon and Alfred Lord Tennyson. It was later in my younger adult life that I started enjoying the works of Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe (the more intense of his works), Cyprian Ekwensi and Gabriel Okara. I love Williams Shakespeare too, but I mature later in life to develop a notion that Henrik Ibsen was a far better dramatist than Shakespeare. As a child, I could finish any works of Ibsen or Garcia Lorca in a few hours. I guess the radical and cultural contents of their works were major mental turn-ons for me.
Do you think that together with other satirical writers like you, you can change the Nigerian narrative, especially as regards political and socio-cultural issues?
No. What we write cannot change anything; not in Nigeria, and maybe nowhere else. What we write might be provocative but it cannot change things. When people are not self-sufficient, they lend themselves to the chicanery of self-serving politicians. How could you compare the lofty imagination of an ideal country impressed in a book, with the reality of N5,000 given to a hungry man to vote for a certain politician? It cannot work. One cannot spark a revolution when people are not intimately ready. See what is going on right now. It is still the old brigands lining up like cunning foxes to take over government again. The money has started flying around and young people one thought could rescue the country will line up to collect their share. The writers’ situation is worsened because those one writes about don’t even have a reading culture. They don’t read anything except select newspapers where they only cut out and file away sections where their thieving egos are being boosted. We keep trying to stimulate the minds of the people, but to change the Nigerian narrative; no. People call on God every day to change Nigeria but we are still where we are.
What challenges do you face as a writer?
I always have to battle within myself about so many ideas. There are so many works I have left unfinished. Actually, I have twice as many unfinished works than I have finished ones. It is a big challenge I have learnt to appreciate and live with. Aside from that, other challenges I have are constantly peculiar to writers.
Which of your works are you most attached to?
Chinua Achebe was asked this same question and he reckoned that it is similar to comparing one’s children. I don’t think his response was merely prima facie. It was substantive. Deep within, I could have revolving sentiments to some particular works of mine but I am unable to choose the one I am most attached to. Maybe, I could do that with academic essays but for creative writing works, they are all my babies.
What are the most common mistakes made by both budding and experienced writers?
Honestly, I don’t know. A human figure is not a flawless figure. However, it does not mean we should relish in living with flaws if we can help it. Like I mentioned earlier, I have many works left unfinished, probably because there were too many mistakes in them. I don’t even agree that there are common mistakes. Each writer attracts his or her own mistakes. You know there are editorial teams who go over a writer’s work before publication? Those are the gatekeepers of our most intimate mistakes.
What qualities does a writer need to succeed?
The mastery of the language. When one has a strong hold of the language, then one will succeed as a writer. A writer is like a blacksmith. To mold metals into the shape one desires, one needs a strong understanding of the anvil. Many other things (such as a good imagination) come into play as well, but for me, mastery of the language is the first.
After publishing, do you go back to read your works?
Absolutely. And, I always found many things that could have changed or written differently.
As a cross-cultural performance researcher, how have you been able to transport indigenous Nigerian experiences and cultures around the world?
My idea of a cross-cultural researcher starts and ends with full acknowledgement of myself as a perpetual student of culture. I travel and I try to learn other cultures and mostly compare with my own Nigerian (African) culture. Transporting indigenous Nigerian cultures around the world, is for me a fantasy. How many Nigerian Indigenous cultures do I want to transport? For someone like me who was born and bred in Lagos, and spent his entire adult life around an academic community in Ibadan, how much of Nigerian indigenous culture do I know? So, what I always do is not to transport, but to juxtapose whatever culture I encounter with the little knowledge of my own culture. I have come to make a big discovery—the culture of the West is still completely tailored to subsume and undermine African culture! Canada brought that shock reality to my face. I never appreciated my African culture when I was in Africa until I experienced the ‘true West’. The libraries here are full of books on modern de-coloniality but it is all a ruse. Perhaps, the most shocking aspect of the experience is that Africans are the ones helping the West to further perpetrate the killing of the African culture, especially Africans living abroad. We talk down on our ‘Africaness’.
What projects are you currently working on?
I am working on a drama and film project with themes bordering on racism and culture. Nigerian writers such as Wole Soyinka and the late Buchi Emecheta and Chinua Achebe experienced some form of racism while they lived abroad. But, it is completely different from what we have now. I say this from a realistic context-positioned angle. I find it expedient to relay this form of racism in my creative works.
How do you like to dress?
I call myself a poor dresser. I grew up in an extended family house where my uncles and aunts were fantastic dressers. I used to admire their dress sense while growing up. Most of my cousins, nieces, nephews and even my siblings caught on this genes, but not me. I just need something clean and fitting to move in; no extras, no extravagance.
