Gabriel Okara: I lost my manuscripts to civil war

Gabriel Okara: I lost my manuscripts to civil war

At 92, renowned poet and novelist, Gabriel Okara, Gabriel Okara is yet to write his swansong; he still has new works in the offing. The elder stateman belongs to the first generation of Nigerian writers who put African literature on the global map.

Okara’s first validation as a writer was in 1953 when his poem, The Call of the River Nun won an award at the Nigerian Festival of Arts. By 1960, he was already recognized as an accomplished literary craftsman. He has published, among others, a novel, The Voice (1964), the poetry collections, The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978) and The Dreamer, His Vision (2005), the juvenelia, Little Snake and Little Frog (1981) and An Adventure to Juju Island (1992).

In the 1960s, Pa Okara worked in civil service and from 1972 to 1980, he was director of the Rivers State Publishing House in Port Harcourt. The proud winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1979 and the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2005, spoke to SOLA BALOGUN and HENRY AKUBUIRO in Port Harcourt on his phenomenal literary career spanning six decades.

You are regarded as a largely self-educated man. At what point in your life did self-education become inevitable?

In those days, there were very few educational openings. For example, secondary schools were very few and it was not very easy to get secondary school admission and go to university afterwards. But I was lucky I got a scholarship to go to Government College, Umuahia, in 1935; and before we could finish, the 2nd World War broke out. Government College, Umuahia, was used as a detention camp for war prisoners. So, we dispersed to various colleges. I was in top class to leave, so I went to Yaba Higher College, which was the highest institution in Nigeria then, something similar to a university; it was up to the standard of a university. The desire to read made one to read and read and attend workshops all over the world, short university courses, and participate in exchange programmes. Later, I went for programmes and training in Comparative Journalism at Northwest University and then elsewhere at various times, off and on, not regular university courses, like Oxford University. So, most of us did that, and got their first degree. But I didn’t continue. That’s how it was in those days.

You started out by writing radio plays and features in 1953. At that time, what was the interest?

Creative writing, generally, was my interest generally, whether prose or poetry.  So, I started writing and experimenting on different genres. For example, because of my writings, I became a member of PEN, a worldwide organization for poets, novelists and essayists, in the 1950s.

You were also a bookbinder. Did it contribute in anyway in making you bookish?

Of course. There was something I didn’t mention, my interest in fine arts, water colour painting. I was taught by the foremost Nigerian painter, Ben Enwonwu, at the Government College, Umuahia, for a short period, in the 1930s. I was also interested in water colour painting. As a matter of fact, I had an exhibition in Lagos.

At a time when many people would like to be lawyers, doctors and engineers, what actually inspired you, especially under the colonial era? Was it passion or the interest?

Umuahia was just like any British public school; you were exposed to all facets of education, in the sciences and arts. We had science workshops where you could practicalize what you had learnt in physics. In fact, we had a moving train built there.

By students?

O yes. It was a steam engine. We laid the rails on a large table. We did carpentry. In fact, I did my school box from there without nail. So, we were interested in all sorts of things, and we read widely, because there was a choice of books to read in the library, and you made presentations once in a week on what you read, to the class. We read Shakespeare and others. So, that made me interested in creative writing and poetry. Then my interest in drawing and water colour painting faded away.

When you started writing?

I want to tell you a story, just like a mystery. You have heard about Herbert Macaulay? When I was in Lagos, I was working with the Government Printing Press, I could paint portraits of people and sell, either you sit for me to draw you or you give me your photograph to draw.

Do you still draw?

No. So, Umuahia exposed us to all aspects of rounded education. In fact, our principal, Rev. Fisher, told us he was running the school as a British public school. There was no difference. We studied everything, including phonetics, which, I think, was one of the courses in the university then. I recall one case when a university student couldn’t understand phonetics, and they asked him to come to me so that I could teach him, which I did. The USIS used to run a programme, and I was invited to go and teach in a general programme. At Umuahia, we were given a broad education, and some of my colleagues became doctors, some lawyers, and so forth. But I stuck to my passion for writing. So, I continued reading and writing.

Apart from Shakespeare and other European writers that inspired you then, do you have Nigerian models?

Not exactly. There might have been, but what were available to us then were foreign writers, Europeans and Americans, the classics.

Your poem “The Call of River Nun” launched you into literary stardom in 1960. In penning this famous poem, what inspired you?

Then I was in Enugu, and I saw the several hills there, and I wanted to compare it with the landscape in which I emerged in Izonland, waters, rivers, palm trees, mangroves, saltwater, swamps, and things like that. So, there I was in a place almost considered a foreign land, because when I was going to Government College, Umuahia, my father didn’t almost allow me to go to the school. He said I was a young boy without any relative in a strange land, and that I would be alone there and would be lost. But I saw things quite differently. At Enugu, I was climbing Enugu hills and seeing the entire town: Uwani, the Wawa group of settlements. So, that made me think of the call of River Nun, the atmosphere, the flora and fauna, and so on; I quickly remembered my childhood days, the flow of river, my growing up watching the River Nun flow down the sea others: “…Like a strange river flowing down the sea….,” that is, imagery.

You are also steeped in folklores in your writings. Are you always conscious of that when you put pen to paper?

It is full of various themes of life, forces and encounters. I used to take the wisdom of tortoise to outwit human beings, for example, and so forth, though small in size. Now, what does that mean? What does man mean by giving this wisdom to tortoise? Man is trying to prove that might, physical strength, is not all; that wisdom and intelligence are more powerful than physical strength in the challenges of life. So, tortoise that defeated human beings was to be defeated by a goat. When man was satisfied that he has made a point, he allowed tortoise to be defeated by a goat.

Not many people know you as a novelist, especially today’s young readers, who see you more as a poet; but you are the author of the experimental prose, The Voice, which is not as successful as your poetry; and, then, the Ijaw transliteration has been disparaged by critiques as flawed. Do you see yourself more of a poet than a novelist?

I am more comfortable with poetry than prose. But I am trying to do with language in The Voice is that, when you write out of out of experience about your culture, the situations, encounters, the difficulties, your cultural background, ambience, and you want to express them in a foreign language and culture, something is lost, but not in totality. For example, if you want to go to the toilet, we say in Ijaw, “I want to go to the waterside”, because we use the river in everything we do. Now, if you want to express that in English, you may wish to retain the circumstances and the ideas of the people, I wouldn’t say, “I want to go to the toilet” –and Ijaw man would say, “What’s that?” Even in the middle of a desert, an Ijaw man would say, “I want to go the waterside”, because that’s his culture. The Voice may not have been successful actually. Chinua Achebe tried to do the same thing in his novels (transliteration), but his was more successful than mine. Mine was too direct, while Achebe’s was more refined.

“Piano and Drums”, one of the most lyrical poems you have ever written, is one of the most celebrated poems of yours. Did your musical background impact in the prosody of the poem, given the fact that you play the piano?

Then, again, I was very conscious of culture conflict. Piano represents foreign culture, while drums represent Africa. Piano is a very important musical sound for those who were brought up in that tradition, but we still have our own drums. So, when an African listens to the drum from his own area, he will understand the meaning. We use drums to send messages. When the Igbo man beat his own drum and the Ijaw man his, they talk to the people with different messages. That is how it is European and African music. Those trained in European music will claim their is better, while those in African music would says theirs is better.

Aside the conflicting symbols you used, does the poem subtly imply your own attack of the white man?

Yes. That came out well in the poem, “You Laughed and Laughed”, in which the Europeans said we don’t have a culture at all. So, when the African spoke, the European laughed and laughed. But a study of the African culture made him change his mind in that poem. This subtle conflict in culture is always in my poetry.

The protagonist in The Voice, Okolo, is a post-colonial African haunted by the society and his ideals. To what extent is this a criticism of the post-colonial African who has embraced foreign values?

Yes, I depicted the encounter with the two cultures, and the owner of the voice is trying to show the light, sort of, to the people to change. Despite all threats and difficulties, he insisted on change and the truth. That is not the case today when we seem to be in a coma of survival. The society there was not comfortable with him at all. So, the protagonist is a society who said no, but he stuck to his ideals; but, in the end, he was ostracized with an allegation that he was a wizard and became crippled. When you are sticking to truth, the society will want to get rid of you, thinking that would end their difficulties. But you can never destroy the truth.

In what circumstance did you lose your manuscripts during the Nigeria civil war?

We were moving from place to place and, as you were moving, you were moving with your property. If you heard the enemy was coming to a particular direction, you would move away, even in the middle of the night. I lost the manuscripts in that process.

How many were they? Poems or prose?

Mostly poems, and, then, I was making a research on the tortoise, a non-fiction; I was trying to see what animals, objects other nations take as symbols of knowledge and might as we take tortoise to be. So, I was writing to universities in Africa and beyond, asking them to discuss it. All those were gone.

Did you make any attempt to retrieve them?

No. Again, I lost a novel I was writing recently, about two years ago, entitled The Making of a Cynic. I had almost concluded the novel. I took it to the US, hoping to finish it, but I couldn’t find it. You could try to rewrite, but it can never be the same.

The Dreamer, His Vision, which won the NLNG Prize in 2005, dedicated to late MKO Abiola, represents a shift in your writing, because of its political bent. What explains the thematic migration at the twilight of your writing career?

It wasn’t a shift really. I wrote that poem as an appreciation of the ideal thing in Abiola. The truth, again, came up about politics. He was honest and considerate about other people. So, what the society regard at then is not what the society regard. I was thrilled by Abiola’s statement, ‘The society has made me what I am today, and I am going to give it back to them.’

At this stage, do we say you have written your swansong?

No, I have not given up writing. What I want to do now is to rewrite The Making of a Cynic. I am also working on poems for kindergarten. You don’t sit down and say you are going to write a poem, it comes on its own.

Why a focus on children now after writing for adults for a greater part of your career?

I like children (laughs), because they are pure; they are not biased.

At 92, you are the oldest writer from Nigeria and one of the oldest on the continent. Has it got to do with the fish from the sea?

I don’t know whether it is the fish…

From the River Nun?

(laughs). Some might say, “Always think of what you wan to do, and you will achieve it.” Don’t just sit down and think it will work out like that, just make an effort. You don’t sit down and say, “I want to be a president”; you have to work towards it. On my health and longevity, it is by grace of God. Man is spiritual; we are not really what we are; we are spiritual in the likeness of God. So, what we call death doesn’t exist. God created man in his own image. He doesn’t fall sick; He doesn’t die; He doesn’t think of evil. So, where will the evil come from? Where will death come from? If you follow this teaching and live uprightly as much as possible, you will find that you are healthy and you hardly fall ill easily, and even if you fall ill, you appear to be healed. I belong to the Church of God Scientists, not the Church of Scientology. This is a Christian church, and it doesn’t attach any of the denominations. I have worshiping in the church since 20-30 years. Before then, I was an Anglican. I was born into an Anglican family.

Most African writers are sold to African traditional religion. What’s your take?

Not all religions agree with the African traditional religion. The difference between African religion and Europeans is the mode of worship, sacrifices and so forth, which others see as barbaric. All religions go towards the same thing, but not the same way. I find out that European religion goes straight more to God than the Africa in its “corner-corner” way. Even the Bible says that, in the end, all will worship Him. We are going in different ways and routes towards the same God.

As a first generation African writer, what advice would you give to younger writers coming up?

Some come to me with their manuscripts and some for advice to recommend publishers to them. I think the attitude or the motive of creative writing today seem not to be the same as we. We were writing not because of making money or trying to be famous, but we just wanted to write. I told you before I was also water colour painter. That urge to write was there. If you have a talent, that urge to write will be there. The same goes for music. We wanted to express something in us and our views on society. That urge to write for writing sake is lacking in today’s writers; they want to be famous. I know some young writers who come to me and say they are poets, but some of them haven’t go the right motives or expectations to write. They want to be instant Achebes. But, those who have the talent and the urge to write will continue to write as the muse directs them.

Are you fulfilled as a writer?

Oh yes. Even if one poem of mine is acclaimed, I am satisfied.

Great writers like you have written their epitaph, what would you like to be remembered for?

That’s a difficult question. People will give it different interpretations. I would like to be remembered for one of my poem, “The Call of the River Nun”.

Why?

Then, I poured out my thoughts, the journey through life and the coming deterrence. It depicts life itself.