pan-African’s Liezel Werth caught up with the delightful, award-winning Nigerian author Ola Awonubi, author of Love’s Persuasion, Love Me Unconditionally and Naija Love Stories. Awonubi’s latest book, Naija Love Stories, is a collection of tales that take the reader on a journey through the lives and loves of a variety of characters, all wrestling with concepts of what it means to love and to be loved. She is now working on her fourth book.
Hi Ola, what are you working on at the moment?
I am currently working on a novel about a certain period in Nigeria’s history and how it relates to a particular individual and their life choices.
What motivated you to write your collection: Naija Love Stories?
Naija Love Stories is a collection of 12 tales exploring the complex and intoxicating emotions that all humans encounter in their lifetime. We all choose to love, and prioritise the thing we love differently in our lives – our family, possession, money and even power – but to what end? I was motivated to see what a book that takes you on a journey through the lives of characters all grappling with the different concepts of what it means to love and be loved – would look like.
You mentioned in an interview that you became a writer to see yourself in the stories of your childhood. Which kind of stories would you like young African girls growing up the diaspora to see themselves in today?
Stories of people especially women that decide to achieve their goals that might sometimes go against what society expects from them. Stories where marriage isn’t seen as attainment or a means of achieving status or wealth but as something that happens between two people that love each other and realise they want to do life together. I would like to see more stories about detectives, scientists, time travellers or set in historical moments that highlight the richness of our history and culture.
Which African authors influenced you, growing up?
Buchi Emecheta, Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi…
Which no-longer-with-us African author would you most like to share a meal with?
Buchi Emecheta.
What are you reading at the moment?
Wartime Sweethearts by Lola Jaye and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
I read in your interview with Bunmi Anjorin-Kogbe that you like to eat Haribo sweets while you’re working. How many bags of Haribo do you require per 1000 words of text?
Hahaha! Sometimes half of a bag when I’m good. Sometimes a whole bag during writer’s block!
Where do you get your ideas from?
Life. Newspapers. Magazines. My overactive imagination!
What is the worst idea for a story you have ever had?
Probably the first book that I wrote about 30 years ago – languishing in some cupboard somewhere. It was a Nigerian Nollywood kind of family saga that was totally improbable and looking back now, really bad.
How do you come up with character names?
Sometimes I research and other times I just go with what I think is best, or what suits that persons social status, where they live, their job etc.
Which of your characters would you most like to socialize with?
Tony Okoli, the male protagonist in my first book Love’s Persuasion. He would be an interesting conversationalist about all things literary and enjoys his food.
Whose writing habits would you most like to have?
I would like to emulate the writing habits of Toni Morrison who wakes at 4 am to write.
Whose writing voice or style do you most envy?
Hemingway, Dickens.
What is the first book you ever loved?
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
What is the most stuck you have ever been on a project? And how did you get out of it?
I’m currently trying to write a story set in small-town America and trying to get out of being stuck by researching more about the topic.
Do you feel that African authors, particularly African women on the continent or abroad, get enough representation in literary circles?
It could be better. We are going to have to make spaces for ourselves sometimes. There are also times when you are going to have to push the doors open and make your work so good that literary circles have no choice but to sit up and take notice.
What changes would you like to see happen for African writers in the future?
To see more of their work represented in the mainstream and for them to be known more for being writers that happen to write about Africa instead of African writers. More distribution and promotion networks and more of our work on the screen – a lot of that is taking place on Netflix and one hope we see more in the theatre and screenplays.
Ola Nubi earned her MA in Creative writing and Imaginative Practice at the University of East London. The Pink House won first prize in the National words of colour competition in 2008 and The Go- slow Journey won the first prize in the fiction category for Wasafiri’s New Writing Prize in 2009 and the Best Author CA Awards 2019. Her short stories feature on African writing.com, Alfreada, Brittle Paper, Story Time, Woven Tale Press, TheSiren.co.uk and naijastories.com.
Ola’s books are fresh, insightful, heart-warming, and impossible to put down, all available on Amazon. I read Naija Love Stories in one greedy gulp and loved every second! We cannot wait for her next offering.
Get the book: Naija Love Stories
Follow Ola Nubi
Twitter @createandwrite
Facebook page: Olawritesfiction
Website: www.olanubi.com
