War stories hit hard and are a sumptous meal for many readers, especially critics of African fiction and those who have come to believe African fiction must highlight heavy topics.
Readers of African fiction expect war stories, stories with palpable political underpinnings, stories about pain and poverty. We get it: it started that way with protest literature and fiction as a tool for social reform. But it doesn’t have to be that way 24/7.
Most of us live a reality that is far removed from war and poverty and trauma. That is not the Africa we know. And while we may complain time and again about different things, the government being at the top of the list, our lives can be ordinary and filled with various joys.
So, we appreciate books like Half Of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe, A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, etc, but we need to celebrate and write more books like Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi and The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin.
Books about everyday people living their everyday lives.
Stories that take place not within bunkers underneath hostile jets, but on bunk beds underneath weather-worn ceilings; not in a presidential villa boasting of a cabinet of old sycophants, but in the sweltering kitchen of a home whose cabinets overflow with useless things no one wants to throw away.
Relatability is one of the characteristics of good fiction and what is more relatable than a book about the day-to-day happenings in a ‘normal’ Nigerian household divorced, if not entirely then in large part, from grand ideologies like politics. What is more relatable than, say, a story about a boy trying to escape punishment by lying, and finding himself in a worse situation?
And even if we were to add a dash of the fantastic or supernatural, like a woman plagued by the spirit of her dead daughter (Happy Stories), we still get to appreciate that this happens within the confines of ‘normal’ life.
Of course, for writers, there is pressure to write such a great piece that intellectuals, critics and other writers would dissect and discuss with the same manic glee a mad scientist would have at the discovery of a rare mineral that can turn humans into rats.
And history has it that pieces that achieve such success are pieces that deal with the big topics–politics, oppression, shared trauma, colonisation, war. So, there’s also the fear that maybe, just maybe, a book that makes no attempts at these lofty conversations will not be duly recognised.
The success of stories like Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo, A Broken People’s Playlist by Chimeka Garricks, and Nearly All The Men In Lagos Are Mad by Damilare Kuku tells us there is hope yet for stories about everyday life.
When we constantly write African stories revolving only around a few themes, we run the risk of telling a ‘single story’ about Africa. And who are we trying to impress with these stories? Really. How many Nigerians can relate to wartime stories today? How many can relate to its consequent famine?
Aren’t these topics a dangerous tag placed on African fiction by those who have no idea what it feels like to live in African countries and who would, to feel like they know it all, search for books that reinforce their stereotypes and views of Africa.
Stories about everyday life can be beautiful. There are so many things under the sun that you can write about. Take The Reel Sisters by Michelle Cummings for example. It’s a book about Fly Fishing. Fly fishing! I won’t fault you if you’ve never heard of that before.
I have a soft spot for that novel because it showed me I didn’t have to know something to enjoy reading about it–I still have no actual visual of Fly Fishing but I can tell you a thing or two about the activity. And about friendship, which was a major theme in the book.
So you see? Even the most mundane thing can make the best stories. And life is filled with so many mundane things. We just learn to give them meaning. It’s the same with stories.
Stories don’t have to be about the big things. They can be about the little things–passion, perspective and experience will make them larger than life.
So, my dear reader, what story do you have in your box of memories that we can take a peek into?
