In Conversation

This week we spoke to Elvin James Mensah about the experiences that led to his joyful debut novel.

Interviewed by Nancy Adimora.

(No spoilers, we promise)

NA: Let’s start from the beginning – when and where was the writing seed planted, and how did the idea for Small Joys come to you?

EJM: Okay, so let me take you back to 2012. I was in university, and I'd always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what I wanted to write. I always had the idea that it would be nice to see a book I’d written in a bookshop, but that's as deep as it got. It was during the whole YA/dystopian time so stories like The Hunger Games were huge. I had an idea that was similar and so, even though my heart wasn't 100% in it, I thought I could probably churn out a pretty good story. I got as far as getting an agent with it, but we never got the story published. As the responses were coming back from the publishers, most of them were saying that they weren't quite feeling it. Internally, I was agreeing with them because it was sci-fi and I didn't even read sci-fi. It was a book that completely wasn't me.

So when that didn't work out, it kind of coincided with me then going through one of the darkest periods of my life. When the time came to work on a second book, I didn't really have anything to lose. Not to sound too cheesy, but the second time around I opted to just write something from the heart. And because the prominent emotion I was feeling was sadness and misery, the only story I seemed to be able to tell was of a very depressed, gay, Ghanaian man.

So the first draft of Small Joys was basically misery from page one all the way to the end. When I sent it to my agent, she said “you can write about sadness, but when the reader picks up this book, they're going to want some hopefulness too.” When I got that feedback, that's when the book properly started to take form. It then became about balancing out that darkness with some hope and light. When the reader gets to the end of this book, I want them to feel hopeful, despite the trauma. I want this book to feel like a warm hug.

NA: A warm hug – that’s beautiful. Thank you so much for that. You mentioned being drawn to writing about a depressed Ghanaian man and I'm really interested to know if and how your Ghanaian identity impacted your writing. What was the response to your decision to pursue writing?

EJM: Oh my god. Well I’ll start by saying it was very difficult because my mum has very specific ideals of what a successful future is - and her ideals are very rigid. It’s the classic vision of a doctor with a wife, kids and a high paying job. From the youngest age, she drilled that into me and let me know that that’s what she expected. And so I never explicitly told her that I wanted to be a writer, it was more the fact that as I was growing up, she was seeing that I wasn't heading towards finding a wife, or trying to be a doctor. So when I said I wanted to study English, she immediately asked if I wanted to be an English professor. To keep the peace, I said yes, but by that time I was already 100% dedicated to writing. Apart from my job at a cinema, I spent all my free time writing. I knew it was what I wanted to dedicate my life to, and my mum wasn't really on board until I got an agent. She needed some kind of evidence that someone outside of our family thought I had enough talent to have a career in writing.

It was still a bit shaky because she couldn’t necessarily see the steps I was taking; all she could see was me typing away, which wasn’t entirely convincing. But when I told her that we'd sold rights to Small Joys and she was going to be able to see it in bookshops, it started making more sense to her because it felt more aligned to her idea of success.

NA: I think many people can relate to your experience, but how did you keep yourself focused on the vision when people around you expressed doubt?

EJM: When I was 20/21 I knew that this was exactly what I want to do. Writing was the only thing I was good at, and the only thing I saw myself excelling in, so I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to do everything I possibly could to try and make this work. I was ignoring friends for weeks at a time, and even as I was going to my cinema job, the only thing that kept me going was the thought that I’d be able to go home and write another 5000 words. I’d come home, write, eat, sleep and then start the day again. I knew exactly where I wanted to be and I was just determined to get there.

NA: It sounds like you had a very logical and strategic approach, but you also shared that you initially started with a story you didn’t fully believe in. You eventually wrote the book that would become Small Joys, could you tell us a little more about this story?

EJM: Small Joys is basically about finding happiness. When I first wrote it, I was in one of the darkest spaces of my life, and essentially what I was trying to do was give this character the things I didn’t have at the time. I know it sounds really obvious, but it’s truly about finding the joy in the small things, because there's this idea that when someone’s depressed or suicidal, there has to be this big reason why they should keep going. That's why birdwatching was such a big part of the story. I came across Christian Cooper after that video in central park went viral in 2020. The more I read about his story the more I was intrigued by the idea that birdwatching was where his joy came from. I wanted to explore how something that seems so casual could make someone so happy and joyful – how something so small could be a reason why someone gets up in the morning.

So Small Joys is about finding happiness - it’s about finding that thing in life that just keeps you going. And it's also about prioritising kindness and compassion above everything else. Because, again, that's what I needed at the time, so that's what I wanted this character to have.

NA: A lot of British-Ghanaian writers are killing it at the moment. We've got Derek Owusu, Krystle Zara Appiah, Jessica George, Caleb Azumah Nelson – what's in the waayke you guys are eating? Tell us the secret.

EJM: I wish I had an answer for you! I really do. A few months ago a friend sent me a screenshot where someone on Twitter had put all our book covers together—

NA: Lol that someone was me!

EJM: Oh my gosh that was you?! That’s when I actually realised the connection for the first time.

NA: Well since you can’t share the secret, could you tell us a little bit about your writing process? You come across as someone who's very formulaic...

EJM: So I’ll start by saying that my favourite part about constructing a novel is the dialogue. Once I generally know how the story is going to go, before I actually start writing it, I open up the notes app on my phone, and I make the characters have random conversations with each other. I'll do this for like a week because when it comes to actually sitting down to write the novel, I don’t want to have to sit there and wonder what certain characters would say in certain situations. I don’t want anything to sound stilted when I'm writing it, I just want it to be like “of course they would say this” and “of course they would say that.” I know exactly how they’d respond because I’ve already seen how they’ve gone back and forth with each other for weeks in advance.

So yeah, after I've pitched the idea to my agent, it’s always dialogue first.

NA: I’ve never heard that approach before, I absolutely love it. And finally, if you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring author, what would it be?

EJM: It would be to trust your gut. Small Joys is the book I wrote when I stopped looking around to see what was popular. I was just writing things I could relate to, and I thought that if I could relate to it, surely someone else must be able to relate to it too. That's the vibe I was on. When you don't trust your gut, when you don’t put your heart into something and it's not really you, people notice. So my advice would be to trust your gut.

Elvin James Mensah was born and raised in South East London. He graduated from Bournemouth University, where he began writing his first novel, Small Joys.

You can read an exclusive excerpt of Small Joys here.