In Conversation

We spoke to Ola Awonubi about writing, romance and her growing love for historical fiction.

Interviewed by Nancy Adimora.

NA: I would love to start with your origin story. When did you start writing, and what drew you to the world of storytelling?

OA: Growing up in England in the 70s, I searched for a little girl that looked like me in the books. I read stories about lots of princesses, and my favorite was Cinderella, but she didn't look anything like me. So I started writing stories when I was about 5 or 6. There was this Enid Blyton book, Famous Five, I rewrote it with myself as a member and from that time on, I developed an interest in writing - so while other people were getting dolls as presents, I was getting books. I just had this ferocious appetite for books, and I loved reading.

When we left England and went back to Nigeria, even though my parents were all about the sciences, I would go to the library and spend hours there. That's how I ended up finding the African Writer’s Series and that just opened up a whole new world for me. The first book I read was Things Fall Apart, followed by No Longer at Ease — both by Chinua Achebe. By this time, I was in Form 3 and those were the books that we used in school. I’d just arrived in Nigeria and these books helped me to understand the country my parents had grown up in and the journey from independence to the oil boom in the late 70s. Writers like Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta really helped me with the foundation of writing, especially writing in such a way that you're part of a wider community, and not just on your own.  

NA: I love how literature helped you understand the world around you. I’m interested in your transition - at what point did you go from enjoying reading & writing to actually wanting to become a published author? What was that like for you?

OA: Before I left Nigeria, I'd started writing a longer story, and that’s when I thought that maybe one day it would get published. I don't think it was very good, it’s still lying around somewhere, but it’s the first time I thought about the possibility of publishing a book. I came to London as an adult in the early 90s and things were very tough financially, because the country was in the middle of a recession. The first thing I thought about was trying to get a job. The whole writing thing was something I kept to myself because obviously, being Nigerian, my parents just felt it was ridiculous. I wanted to study Mass Communication and English, but my dad was an accountant and he said, “it's not gonna happen,” so I studied Business Management instead. When I came back to London, I did a secretarial course and learned how to type, how to use the database, how to use Word and Excel, and then I started doing administrative work to pay my bills. 

The writing dream had almost died, to be very honest. It wasn't until about 2000 when a close friend of mine asked, “Ola, didn’t you say that you wanted to get into writing?” I started thinking about how much I had drifted from my first love in terms of writing and I had not done anything about it. At the time I wanted to be an editor, so I ended up working as an editorial assistant for a magazine. They got all these books sent to them for free to review, so I ended up getting books from the African Writer’s Series being sent to me. I also got to talk to some of the writers and gradually, my dream started to come alive again. 

By 2005, I decided to start writing again. I enrolled into a writing course at the local community college and started attending classes after work. I entered into writing competitions as I was learning, and I won my first writing competition in 2008. That was the Words of Color writing competition and it really encouraged me to keep going.  

NA: So you were encouraged to keep writing, and after mastering short stories you moved on to novels. I’d love for us to speak about your new novel, The Nurse’s Tale. Can you tell us more about this book?

OA: First let me give you a little back story. About five years ago, I was minding my business on Instagram, and I saw this post come up. There was a photo of a nurse dressed up in 1940s style. The woman in the photo was Princess Adenrele Ademola and the post was asking if anyone knew or had any information about her. I was intrigued because she was Yoruba and because I've always been interested in history. I thought, okay, I'm on social media, I know a few people, let me put it on my page and see if anyone knows anything. I also happened to be part of this group on Facebook called ‘Nigerian Nostalgia’ where a lot of Nigerians gather and they post pictures of their parents and things to do with Nigeria — a lot of people have found themselves on the page when they're looking for old classmates etc. So I thought I would put it up there, to see if anyone had any information, but no one knew anything about her beyond what was already in Western media. Then, fast forward three years in the middle of COVID, I got a phone call from a lady called Nancy who told me HarperCollins were interested in publishing a historical novel inspired by her story. 

NA: Hahaa that’s crazy - I had no idea you’d heard about her story before I reached out!  

OA: I had! I shared her photo on all my social pages, but time went by and I forgot all about it until you called and asked if I would be interested in writing the book. It sounded like a challenge but I was ready to take it on. By then, I'd written a collection of short stories set in post-colonial Nigeria called Naija Love Stories, mostly spanning the 1930s to the 1970s. I’d also written another short story about the Second World War in another collection of short stories. It's always been an era that's interested me so I started doing as much research as I could. Although I found a lot of information, I couldn't find anything about her from after she left the UK in 1949. I thought writing her story in a linear way - she came, she saw, she conquered - would be extremely boring, so I chose to give the book a dual narrative. 

So to answer your question, A Nurse’s Tale is inspired by the story of Princess Aderenle Ademola who came to England during the Second World War, to work at Guy’s Hospital. That's the first part of her story. The second part of the story is when her great niece comes to England on an invitation from the NHS who have decided to honour older people of colour who have worked for them in the past 80 years by hosting their existing family members at a big celebration. So Yemi comes over to England and discovers more things that she didn’t know about herself, and about her aunt.

NA: You mentioned that you didn’t want to approach this story as a straight narrative, and I noticed that you were very intentional about including elements of romance. From what I know about your work, romance feels like your signature genre - do you think romance will always have a place in your stories?

OA: Yes, I do. I love writing about romance, but I didn't put it in the book merely for it to be in there. I wanted characters to fall in love because I felt like it would humanise them. People might think this is a story about war but really, it's a story about life. Life necessitates love, and that's why you’ll always find it in my stories. I'm working on another historical novel and there's a bit of love in there as well. I can't seem to escape it… 

NA: …and I can’t wait to read it! But my next question is more about your writing process. What does it look like in a practical sense? Do you wake up early to write? Do you have jobs outside of writing? How do you balance it all?

OA: The first thing I would say is, what drives me is passion. They say that writing is 50% perspiration and 50% passion. That also means that, as creatives, we often don't have that luxury to be able to write full-time. So I've got a full time job, and what I've done over the past 15 years is to combine work with writing. I write in the evenings after work for at least one hour, sometimes two or three hours. Even if what I’m writing doesn’t make sense, I always try to make sure I write every day - even when life gets in the way.

When I lost my mum, I went to Nigeria and I had to engage with toxic family members who were fighting with me and my siblings over property and all kinds of stuff. Two weeks after she died, I found out that I had to do another set of edits on the book, and I found it quite therapeutic to be able to switch off from the war that was happening around me and concentrate on fiction. There was also a determination to see this to the end because I had told my mum about the book and she was very encouraging. 

NA: It takes a lot of discipline to write every day, that’s incredible. Thanks for sharing, and I’m sure your mum would be very proud of you. My final question is, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, what would it be?

OA: The first one is read widely. For the past 15 years, I have been going to bookstores and hanging out there while I imagined seeing my name on the covers of the books. In order to do that properly, I needed to know what genre my work would be in. Look at your writing and ask yourself, where would it fit? Is it crime, magical realism, literary fiction? Going into bookstores like that will ginger you, and you will need that because there's so much rejection along the way. Being in positive spaces will also help your mental health.

Many times, I go to places where I can hang out with other writers, because it's a very solitary activity. I'd go to places like the Africa Writes festival, and that's where I met you and so many others. You have to go out into the world and allow different environments to touch what you're doing. When you let the world affect your writing, your stories will be able to touch and impact more readers. In summary, read widely, go out more, and use your imagination to visualise seeing your book on shelves.

Ola Awonubi was born in London to Nigerian parents. She grew up and attended school in Brighton and lived in Nigeria before returning to England in 1992. An avid reader, she enrolled in writing classes and went on obtain an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East London. Her short stories have first prize in both the National Words of Colour competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2009. This is her first historical novel.

You can read an excerpt of A Nurse’s Tale here.