Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
In Conversation
This week we spoke to Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ about her debut novel Dazzling, her responsibilities as an author, and why writing needed to come first.
Interviewed by Nancy Adimora.
(No spoilers, we promise.)
NA: Let’s start at the very beginning. When was the writing seed planted, and where would you say it all started for you?
CE: I don't know, to be honest. I don't think it was ever not there. In fact, I envy people who had something else that they were going to do with their lives. It was never like that for me. My mum is a big reader of novels and my dad is more of a nonfiction reader, but growing up my dad was always around writers. He was friends with lecturers who had books, and they would have these little get-togethers where they would present their latest work to each other. So we were always sort of involved in the arts. I've been in plays since I was a child so there was no real starting point for me. But there was still a lot of hedging my bets because I knew my parents weren’t going to want to pay for me to do something that was purely creative. However, as I became older, they had mellowed somewhat and so it was more like, “okay, you can do this thing, but only if you do something else.” It wasn’t “be a lawyer” or “be a doctor,” it was “do your PhD and become a lecturer and then you can write on the side.”
They wanted me to basically end up like their friends who were doctors and professors, but who were all frustrated artists. I didn't want to be a frustrated artist. For me, the whole point was to be an artist first and foremost. So I think I've always worked towards sustaining myself with my art. I understand that it's hard and yes, I've done so many things in order to get to this point, but the writing always had to come first.
NA: I love that idea of writing always needing to come first, but I’m interested in how that became a possibility in your mind. How did you feel like it was possible to sustain yourself through writing if the artists you came across were doing it alongside other professions?
CE: I think you need a smidgen of self-delusion, you know. You need a bit of self-delusion to drive you. People will say there's no money in writing and I’ve never really believed that. If 1% of writers are making money, then why can't that be me? I just don't believe that those things that are set as ‘norms’ in this industry apply to me. They don't apply to me.
What I knew early on was that if I wanted to make any sort of headway in the arts, I couldn't stay in Nigeria. Now, you definitely can, but back then, I knew I couldn't because I wasn't prepared to just write on the side. I'm saying self-delusion, but I think it’s more about self-belief. If you don't want your dream to be destroyed, you have to hold it close to your chest because people will say hurtful things. You also need to know that you're on your own - even when you’re surrounded by people doing the same thing, you need to understand that you're not the same. You have your own path, and you have to stick to your own path, because everybody's Chi is different. Your life tends to go the way it should go when you stick by your Chi and that is something that my dad finally agreed on last year. He basically said, “I see you, and I see what you're doing.”
NA: I absolutely love that. It must have felt amazing to be affirmed in that way after pushing past the resistance. So now, moving on to your writing, I was introduced to your work through your short stories, and it’s no secret that you were shortlisted for the Caine Prize twice, in 2017 and 2020. I’d love to know what drew you to short stories, and why you think you were able to find so much success with this form?
CE: I actually started with plays when I was little. Growing up, we were made to read encyclopedias all the time. We had to memorise as many facts from the Encyclopedia Britannica as possible, and then we were made to regurgitate the information. But at the back of most of the editions, there were these little plays. Sometimes they were simplified versions of classic plays and they would show you stage directions. And so I started to write plays because that was what I saw first. Plays were what I wanted to start with because it was the form that felt the most accessible.
Then by the time I got to my teenage years, I felt like I had a lot more to say, and consequently a lot more to hide, so I started writing poems - such awful poems. And then finally, by the time I came to the end of my teenage years and into my early 20s, I started to experiment with short stories, but that was because of my exposure to journalism and the art of storytelling in as few words as possible. It was all about concentrating the information that was most pertinent at the very top, and working your way in some sort of reverse pyramid structure to information that could be cut if there was no space. You had to present your information as concisely as possible, and so when I started to write again, properly, it was about putting those things into practice.
On a more personal note, by that time I’d had a child, I had a household to run and so many things to balance, but I also had these small snatches of time, in the night after the kid had gone to bed. That was when I worked. So I concentrated on using what I had learned through journalism to work on short stories, because I really didn't have the leisure of long form.
Writing short stories also helps you get your name out there – you can submit to magazines and it means that you keep up with who else is writing and what’s trending. But perhaps most importantly, short stories helped me get all my ‘weirdness’ out. I just wanted to experiment and I wasn't sure if it was ever going to win awards but I kept writing anyway. This was way before speculative fiction became a thing that I was even aware of, I was just writing the stories I wanted to write. And so it helped me to experiment with stories and send it to magazines like Apex Magazine and Luna Station Quarterly, places where they celebrate things that are bizarre and weird.
NA: I want to pick up the point you made about writing speculative fiction before knowing the genre existed – I love how you saw writing as the place where you could get all the weirdness out, but how do you feel about labels like ‘speculative fiction’ or ‘magical realism’ when it comes to stories like yours that are set in Nigeria. I ask because there's something about this story that felt grounded in reality. When I used to go back home to Nigeria for summer holidays, I’d hear all these crazy stories from my cousins, and they all felt so real. Nothing about it felt speculative so what’s your thoughts on these genres and categorisations?
CE: First of all, I don't think it's the writer’s job to decide which genre their writing falls under. It's not my business…
NA: Ooo I love that! Please elaborate.
CE: Well, I'm not a librarian. I am also not a marketer or a publicist, so it’s not my business. My business is to write the story, and you get to decide what to call it. My only job is to do each story justice - to tell it to the best of my ability, to make sure that I'm saying what I need to say, and that I’m representing the characters properly. I also need to make sure that there’s a universality to the characters’ experience; universality that even a strangeness or weirdness or bizarreness does not erase.
But to speak specifically to your point, one thing about the way that we live in Nigeria is that we're still very close to things that people consider magical, you know. The thing that I really like about a lot of African countries is the way technology exists alongside all the so-called supernatural or mythical, folkloric beliefs. Now a lot of people who read Dazzling are recognizing that there is some mythos to the story, but it's also very much a case of ‘this is how we live.’ In many of our cultures we believe that there is no dichotomy between the living and the dead. We believe that the dead, wherever they go, have influence on the living, which is why when I was growing up, we were always told to treat people with respect. You treat people with reverence because you don't know who you're talking to, you could be greeting an ancestor that you've never met. So it’s not really fantasy or fabulist in that it's all part and parcel of life in Nigeria.
NA: That brings us on to Dazzling. I’d love for you to tell us more about the story - if someone asked what Dazzling is about, what would you say?
CE: I’d love to tell them what Dazzling is about, but that's also not my job.
NA: Really?!
CE: Yeah, I don't think it's my job. I'm always inherently more interested in what people read into it. I know what I wrote, but it's a communion, isn't it? When you write a story that’s published, it's a two-way thing. You have me, you have all my stuff on the page, and now it’s your turn to feed me with your interpretation. Like, what do you think the book is about?
NA: Okay, so on the one hand, I love that answer because it speaks to me in terms of the beauty and power of books, and how readers co-create with authors. But the publisher/business side of me is going to push you for an answer because your vision for the book is a crucial starting point for readers.
CE: Haha I don’t disagree but I’m very bad at elevator pitches. I can tell you what any other person's book is about, and I can sell it to you right now, but when it comes to mine it’s more difficult. This book is very much a conversation, but if I had to say something, I think I would say that it's very much a story about two girls surviving in a social and physical landscape in which they are always the underdog.
The story looks at what happens from the very beginning of a girl's life where she is told that she's only good to be beautiful. It's either you're beautiful and you're categorised in a way that means that you add value to someone's household, or you are allowed freedom, but only if it brings value to your kin. There is no true freedom, and I wanted to explore what happens when certain decisions have been taken on behalf of girls, and what happens when they have to deal with the consequences?
It's about what society sees, and how it compares to how young girls see themselves. I've always been interested in those opposing forces, you know, the force that is yourself, trying to act on your own destiny, and the force that is conformity and societal pressure to act in a way that is deemed acceptable.
NA: Fantastic answer! And I love how you focused on the overarching theme because this book definitely isn't linear in terms of me being able to confidently say it’s about one thing or the other. There is so much going on, and it forces you to think about things in completely different ways. Like, there’s not even a clear villain…
CE: Just to pick up on your point about villains, this is a book I wouldn’t have been able to write successfully until this stage in my life, because I was very much of the belief that when people are evil, they're evil, full stop. But villainy is not like that. The reason that villainy is so effective is because you believe in the rightness of what you're doing. You believe that you're doing the right thing, even if it's to the detriment of somebody else. To Treasure, the person who has shown the most love and kindness in her life is dead, and she has a chance to bring him back. When her father dies all these horrible things start to happen, and so anybody is going to want to do whatever they can to fix the situation.
She’s not doing things because she hates people. She's doing things because she has a higher purpose. And isn't that the whole backbone of villainy? You believe that your purpose is pure, is more refined, sophisticated, and more important than everybody else’s. And so you will do whatever you can to achieve your goals. I mean, look at Killmonger, for heaven's sake…
NA: Lol even Thanos!
CE: Exactly. When he was busy clicking people, I was like, you know what, click them. There are too many of us on this planet so go ahead and click, it’s OK. Even if it means I disappear when you click.
So I think the best villains are characters you can empathise with as well, because you understand their position and you understand the difficulties they face.
NA: That’s such an interesting perspective. It’s given me so much to think about – but another thing I enjoyed about this story was the boarding school element. I've never been to boarding school, but I am obsessed with the idea of boarding school in Nigeria…
CE: It’s not too late to go…
NA: Hahaa alright I’m not that obsessed. And, luckily for me, I got the chance to experience boarding school through reading this book. I also had a chance to step into a busy marketplace. You first introduced me to Igbo markets in your Of This Our Country essay, so I’m curious to know why markets continue to play such a central role in your stories?
CE: I feel like markets are going to play a role in all my stories. They are tied in with so many memories for me because we lived near a market called Eke Awka market in Awka, which is the capital city of Anambra State. In Igbo culture, there are market days, and there are gods that govern the market days, and so each market is supposed to be dedicated to a particular god. And so on the day that particular god is revered, people from around the surrounding villages and towns will come to the market to trade, to sell and buy goods. The more successful the gods are at drawing people to the market, the bigger and bigger the market gets. Igbo markets are not just places of buying and selling, they are also places of innovation and invention. So much of life happens in the market.
Another thing many people believe about markets is that it's not just human beings doing the trading - spirits buy and sell as well. It ties back to what I was telling you about how we were told to respect everybody, because you never know who could be your ancestor. Markets are a central point for Igbo life and I’ll continue to write about it because that's where I grew up.
NA: Wowww – terrifying and fascinating in equal measure! But I’m really looking forward to seeing how markets show up in your future stories. Now here’s the final question we like to end on: if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, what would it be?
CE: Just read, man. Just read the thing and write the thing. You need to be shameless, about the way you read. Read all the things, even things that you think that you shouldn't read. Don't be afraid to read things that are controversial. Don't be afraid to read things that will shake you and will shake your faith. If there’s a fear of confronting who you are and what you believe, you're never going to be a good writer because you need to be able to see through the eyes of people who are not the same as you.
You can look for help later down the line, but you have to do the toughest bits of this gig yourself, read everything, even if it's niche and nobody else is interested in it, read it anyway. Do what you're supposed to do, and the rest will fall into place.
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Awka, Nigeria. A product of not one but two Nigerian boarding schools, she went on to attend Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria, before doing an MA in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her work has been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), a Nommo award (2020) and the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020). In 2019, she emerged winner of the inaugural Curtis Brown First Novel Prize. Dazzling is her first novel.
You can read an exclusive excerpt of Dazzling here. And if you enjoyed our conversation, drop a comment below!
