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Interview with
I.N.C. Aniebo
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
“There is African Literature
. . . I believe in it,” says I.N.C. Aniebo, novelist, and
scholar
Immediately Chinua Achebe’s third novel, Arrow Of
God, appeared in London in the early 1960s, a
critical voice rang out from Lagos, in the journal,
Nigeria Magazine, with the poser: “Achebe: Now A
Sociologist or Novelist?” That question awakened a lot
of interests and opened new vistas in the criticism of
the works of Achebe who by then had become acknowledged
as the best writer to come out of Africa. ANIEBO,
the owner of that voice, and internationally known
Nigerian writer, has been described as “the
master-craftsman of the Nigerian Short Story.”
Although he has published three collections of short
stories, his novels, Anonymity of Sacrifice (AWS
148) and The Journey Within (AWS 206), both
published by Heinemann, London, in 1974 and 1978
respectively, have attracted critical acclaim and
established him as a significant African writer. His
first collection of short stories, Of Wives,
Talismans and the Dead (AWS 253) has been reprinted
a number of times. The other two collections, Man of
the Market and the award-winning
Rearguard Action, has helped to consolidate his
reputation as a skilled writer.
Since
1979, Aniebo has taught Literature and Creative Writing
at the University of Port Harcourt. A former officer in
the Nigerian Army, he was trained at cadet schools in
England and Ghana, and at the Command and General Staff
College at Leavenworth, Kansas. He equally served in the
UN Peace-keeping Force in the Congo (now DRC) as an
officer. During the Biafra-Nigeria War, he fought on
the Biafran side and was discharged in 1971. He
later went to the University of California in Los
Angeles(UCLA) where he took degrees in English and
History. Aniebo’s several reviews and short stories are
scattered in many magazines and journals around the
world.
As a
prelude to a critical appraisal of Aniebo’s works to be
soon published, UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE who was Aniebo’s
student at the University of Port Harcourt shares an
encounter with Aniebo in July 1995 in the don’s office.
Aniebo was then Head, Department of English, University
of Port Harcourt.
* * *
* *
Excerpts:
Ugochukwu: At a recent forum in Owerri, your work
as a significant writer was acclaimed. Also, critics
have continued to applaud what they view as your
exceptional talent. Charles Nnolim, for instance,
insists that in your first novel, The Anonymity of
Sacrifice, all the usual flaws that normally
attend first novels are “refreshingly” absent; can we
deduce from these developments that there has equally
been a tremendous financial success?
Aniebo:
No, no ... there
has been very little financial reward, because . . .
let’s see . . . The Anonymity of Sacrifice
was published abroad and I was in the USA at the time it
was published. Since I was a new writer, the sales
didn’t begin to pick up; it was very, very gradual.
Then, four years later, I published my The Journey
Within which I thought would really make it better,
but, somehow or the other, not too many people
discovered The Journey Within, even though the
critics loved it. When I came back here in 1979 and
started teaching, I saw some reviews of that my book in
French, which I had one of my colleagues translate into
English. I couldn’t believe that this was being said
about the novel I wrote. They praised it so much . . .
but up till now, I can’t say I’ve gotten a lot of money
out of it. So, even though people acknowledge that . . .
yes . . . one critic did say something. He said that if
this novel had been published in the early sixties, it
would have been as famous as Chinua Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart. So, probably, I wrote mine too late.
Ugochukwu:
Despite the
significant progress made in the definition and
consolidation of what is today known as African
Literature, doubts still linger in some quarters about
its existence; do you think African Literature really
exists? If yes, what is your definition of it?
Aniebo:
Yes, of course,
[African Literature exists]. There has been a lot of
controversy about it. But you see, it’s like somebody
looking at the sun and asking, “Do you believe in the
sun?” But the sun is there. You are an African, I’m an
African, okay. There is an African thought system. So,
naturally there must be an African literature. It’s
automatic. I mean, arguing whether it’s there or not is,
to me, one of those stupid things the white people use .
. . it’s like the white people saying that we don’t have
African history.
But we know we
have history. After all, how did we get from there to
here? That is history; not some stupid thing which they
would rather make us believe in Nigeria that, until
Mungo Park saw the River Niger, the Niger never existed,
which is stupidity. We know that River Niger was there
long before the great ancestors of Mungo Park ever
thought of coming to Africa. So, how can you say that
Mungo Park discovered the River Niger? That is a very
stupid thing to say; he gave it a name and the stupid
black people
— I don’t
know what is wrong with them
—
accepted that thing.
Why should we
call it River Niger? I’m sure that if you talked to the
people who live on the banks of that river, that is, if
you asked them, “What’s the name of this river?”, they
will certainly give you about 1500 different names it
has borne or still bears. So why don’t we pick one of
these names or even take one letter from each one and
form a word. No, we will accept the name River Niger,
just as we have accepted Nigeria.
Why should we be
even called Nigeria? People keep mistaking us for Niger
or Liberia. I mean, look at all the confusion, when you
know that there are about two hundred and fifty
different (groups of) people in this place. And they
wish to bring the same confusion in African Literature.
But there is African Literature. I believe in it, and to
me, African Literature is that literature that contains
African thought system and African life, period. Whether
it is by a Mungoro or a Russian or a Jew, it’s relevant,
because for the Jew to be able to write African
literature, he must have lived in Africa before he can
do it.
Otherwise, he
would be writing Jewish literature about Africa. Take
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary for instance, that is
not African literature. We know it because, as Chinua
Achebe said, Mr. Johnson might have appeared stupid to
the white man, but when he gets to his home, he is a big
boss and he tells them what to do. And yet Joyce Cary
was never able to capture that other life of Mr.
Johnson; the only one he could capture was the one he
saw from his white man’s point of view. He didn’t know
that the black man was playing games with him; you know
that when he is with the white man, he behaves in a
particular way, but when he goes home, he behaves like
the real person he is. Just like a chameleon, if you are
near, it takes your colour, as soon as you move away, it
changes its colour to (match) its normal surroundings.
That’s the way we are. Yeah, we have African
Literature.
Ugochukwu:
Thank you. Now, let’s look again at this very old debate
that has become stale even before it has been
successfully resolved. I’ll just use one example to
illustrate what I mean. In 1964, John Knappert writing
in the journal,
Transition
declared, “I do
not think there can be any other African Literature but
literature in African Language”; do you agree with him?
Aniebo:
No, I don’t
agree with that. Again, that’s another area we have
argued and argued about. The problem as I see it is that
very few, as of now, very few African writers can write
in African language, because they never studied the
African language. The language you use in literature is
the language you know very well. I used to ask some of
my Igbo friends, “when you think, do you think in Igbo
or in English?” And sometimes, they can’t even tell me .
. . they say, “well, well, you know, sometimes I
think in Igbo.” For me, most of the time, I think in
English. I have to consciously change it to think in
Igbo.
So, English,
because I have practiced it, studied it virtually all my
life except maybe from the first five years before I
started going to school, I think I know that language
as well as I can know any other language. Some to tell
me that unless I write in Igbo, I’m not writing African
literature is bullshit; unless you are now saying that I
am not an African; then that’s a totally different
matter. If they say I’m not an African, fine; then your
definition is right, but I feel that with time, many
more African languages will be used in creative writing,
and when that happens, I also think that those Africans
— this is
in the future
— will
look for the works that were written in either English
or French or Portuguese and translate them into the
required language.
After all, think
of the British; when did they start talking English?
— in the
12th century; what were they doing for twelve hundred
years? Didn’t they have a literature? They did. But at
that time, they were either using French, because, the
French had conquered them and stayed there. William the
Conqueror in the 10th century, 1066 AD to be exact,
conquered them and French was the official language in
the palace of English Kings. Yes, for two centuries!
That’s why when Chaucer started his English revolution,
everybody hailed him. That’s why they call him the
beginning of English Literature.
So, the same
thing is apparently happening to us. Some idiot came
over here and forced us to now use English. We will
continue to use it until we find something else to take
its place. But that does not mean that all the things
that were written or that were regarded as literature
before Chaucer started are still not regarded as
literature. They are. Beowulf, for instance,
antedates Chaucer. But it is regarded as one of the top
English things. So can you imagine what language it must
have been written in?
Where did the
English people come from anyway? You have the Welsh, the
Scotch, the Irish and the Anglo-Saxons; where is this
English we keep talking about? Let’s not bother
ourselves; create whatever you can in whatever language
as long as you will invest it with your sensibilities
and your African feelings; because there is a way we
look at the world which nobody else does and I can tell
you why: the fact that every morning you wake up and you
look up and see the sun shinning makes your life go in a
particular way from the person who will wake up and for
six months he will not see the sun.
Both of you will
never think alike. Because that kind of person, if you
bring him out where the sun shines everyday, he will go
mad out of joy. You know, he might remove all his
clothes and say he’s sunning himself. You see them lying
on the beaches and so on. Have you seen a black man who
has stayed in the sun all these years, going out there
to strip himself and lie under the sun and saying, “I’m
sunning myself?” When you are even running away from the
sun? So, your life-style is different.
That’s what we
call ‘African’. Take somebody, say from New York, then
put him in a jungle, he will go mad. He will tell you
all those insects will harm him. But take a small baby,
an African child, put him in the forest, he won’t make
any noise. He will even be going round looking for
things to play with. Whatever, he sees, be it a little
worm, he will ask, “what is this?” He might even pick it
up. Whereas a white man will run off and exclaim, “No!
There are too many things crawling in this place!” So,
it’s all a matter of life-style.
Ugochukwu:
How can you
assess our African critics of African Literature? Do you
think that most of the things that are being churned out
in journals, magazines and newspapers today can
recommend themselves when juxtaposed with the criticisms
emanating from other areas of the globe?
Aniebo:
Well, as I told
you at the beginning, I’m biased against critics, so you
are really asking their enemy to kill them. But let me
try and be fair, because I also tried to be a critic
myself. The problem, I think, with our critics at the
moment is that they are all afraid. They are afraid of
putting their foot in the wrong place; which is
understandable. According to the University regulation,
you must publish to be promoted. Therefore, you cannot
say things that will not be accepted by the editors of
the journals. You have to try and say things that you
think the editors will accept.
So, because of
that now, you will write about Chinua Achebe . . . you
go to the library . . . and after you have produced so
many footnotes, even up to fifty, and put them
together, you come out . . . and in the end, you
say nothing. Then you pick up Soyinka and you do the
same. Nobody, for instance, will come out and say Chinua
Achebe is the worst writer in Nigeria (assuming that is
applicable). No African critic can do it. And the most
unfortunate thing is that even when they get to the
stage where they can say these things, they have already
lost the urge to say it . . . that is, when they become
professors.
In Nigeria, when
you are a professor, it means, bye-bye to work, go to
bed, sleep, cover your head, enjoy your house, your car;
‘no more work no more play’, as they say. Whereas,
abroad, when you get to professorship, you will continue
working. In fact, work starts when you have become a
professor, because they have a different system; you
will see a young man of thirty, and on the basis of a
book, just one book that he has written, he is made a
professor.
It is the
promise in that book that made him a professor, and not
in the cumulative work he has done. They expect that now
he is a professor, he can now sit down . . . there’s no
more rush to publish. So he can sit down and really
bring out his innermost thought so that when anybody
sees it, the person will say, that is from Professor So
and So, and will open it and read. In our own area, it’s
different. By the time you get to the stage where you
can write, you are already dry and have forgotten what
is to be written.
So my thinking
is that; unfortunately, our critics of African
Literature have not reached that position that the
critics of other world literatures have reached,
particularly American, British, French, and German. And
I say this with unhappiness because the critic is
supposed to be the midwife to the writer. The writer is
pregnant. It is this midwife that will help the writer
deliver. Without the midwife there might be either
obstructions or the baby might die or it could be
still-born, or even suffer from other kinds of
complications.
Critics help
writers to produce better materials in other places. And
this is what the Nigerian or African critics should do
for creative writers. But no, they will rather tear them
apart . . . tell you this, and tell you that: it’s a
useless book; or they may even over praise you. Can you
believe that there is no writer in Nigeria or Africa
that has been brought up and praised by an African
critic? None! Think about it. We wait until Europeans
say, “Hey, this is a fantastic one, and everybody will
dive in. Why can’t any of our ‘established’ professor-
critics just pick one writer here and really write and
write about him that everybody comes to accept that this
is a fantastic writer. I mean, sit down and pick any
African writer and make the writer his own. To me,
that’s what criticism is all about. So, that’s the
distinctive mark of the African. Instead of because the
oyibo men say, Chinua (Achebe) is the best, so he
is the best. There’s no other better writer that can
come up again.
Ugochukwu:
But Professor
Eldred Jones helped promote and spotlight Wole Soyinka?
Aniebo:
Did he? Soyinka
was fantastic already. He did quite well, yes, the
problem there is that Soyinka, because of the way he
wrote, also appealed to Europeans much more than to us.
So the work of Eldred Jones there is not so obvious.
What I’m thinking of is some writer Europeans dislike.
Let an African critic popularize that writer. Okay, Ben
Okri is now being popularized over there in Europe; you
will see how he will take over this place soon. And all
our little critics will now dive in to promote him,
quoting this man of England who said this and that about
him or this man of Massachusetts who said another thing
about him, or this man of Russia or Greece.
* * *
* *
(Interview
conducted July 1995)
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye is on the
Editorial Board of Independent Newspapers (www.independentngonline.com
), Lagos. He writes a weekly column (SCRUPLES) for the
paper on the back page (every Wednesday). Email:
scruples2006@yahoo.com
* * *
* *
Rearguard Action by I.N.C. Aniebo:
These eight short stories concentrate on terrible
experiences during the Nigerian civil war. The author
vividly illustrates, in action- packed tales, how people
are the victims of war. He shows pain, hunger,
confusion, and the breakdown of morality. As a
successful writer, and previously a Nigerian army
officer, the author brings the reality home.
posted 3 September 2006 |
