I Became A Writer By Accident   

Published on August 16, 2010 by TheNEWS   ·   No Comments

Sade Adeniran went through what most aspiring writers go through: serial rejection by publishers. But she is now on a roll.  Imagine This, her debut novel, which she self-published, won the 2008 Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (African region). In this interview with NEHRU ODEH, the award-winning writer speaks about the novel and her writing career

What is the novel, Imagine This about?
It’s the story of a young girl, Lola Ogunwole, who is born in London but her dad brings her and her brother to Nigeria to live. And instead of living in the city, he takes her to the village, where she lives with relatives. She is not  able to speak the language, and she doesn’t have the things she is used to: like water and electricity. She has to really make adjustments. So, she keeps a diary in which she writes everything that happens to her. Now, people ask me if I kept a diary as a child. No, I didn’t keep the journal as a child; it’s not autobiographical. So it’s actually Lola’s story.

How did you end up publishing it?
I guess before I sent it out to publishers, I gave it to a lot of people to read. And because the report I got back from them was very positive, it kind of gave me the courage to approach publishers. However, the publishers didn’t seem to see something that friends and acquaintances had seen. I gave it to such a huge group–about 20 people–before I actually got the courage to send it to publishers. And I also thought I hated my job so much that I decided to quit. And that was when I decided I wanted to be a writer.

Why the title Imagine This?
Because when I sent it out to people to read, a lot of people, even though they loved the book, came back to me and said: it is so unimaginable what happened to Lola in the story. And originally it was called, The Journal and it graduated from The Journal to Idogun. And when I got that feedback, I just couldn’t imagine what happened. That’s why I called it Imagine This.

Did you, before writing the novel, think of becoming a writer?
No. As I say, to people I am an accidental writer. This is the second thing I have written commercially that has been published. The first one was my radio play. So, for me each of those incidents is a response to something that happened in my life. So, it wasn’t that I sat down and said I want to write a story about something. It kind of just happened.

Now that you have seen the result of your effort, have you decided to take writing as a career?
I guess I have. One thing I do most is that I love writing stories. If I can make a living from it, then I would. Happily. But then, it is not easy.

Who were your favourite authors when you were growing?
I won’t say I had a favourite author because when I read a book, I don’t look at the author’s name. I just read the stories. But the kind of things I grew up reading when I was in the United Kingdom, I can’t even remember because I left when I was quite young. But back in Nigeria, apart from textbooks, I read a lot of Pacesetters, a lot of Mills and Boon, Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins, those kinds of books. You know the kind of things they say, Oh that is not good literature. But I still love reading them.

What were the difficulties you faced before you published it yourself?
I guess the challenges every writer faces before they get publishers–you get all the rejection letters. It’s self published because I decided that the best thing to do would be to do it myself because I believed in the story and I believed that actually this is a story that everyone needs to read.

How did your background influence your career?
I read a lot as a child. Anything and everything I could lay my hands on, I read.

As a Nigerian writer living in the UK, is there any peculiar challenge you face?
The challenge I face if I am writing, especially if the character is set in Nigeria, is about places; trying to remember streets, the environments and things like that. But the culture, because I grew up here, is still in me; those things haven’t changed. I am back here and I feel that I haven’t left; things are still the same.

Is the sense of culture shock in that book buoyed by the fact that you were outside the country when you wrote the book?
It’s a result of me actually going through that process myself as well because I came back as a child. I went through that same process of going to the village, living in the village. And when you are used to switching on the light and all of a sudden you buy a candle or lantern, or you have to walk to the stream for water, those are the things that happened to me. But her story is her story. But those are the things that I remembered from my childhood.

How did you get the raw materials for the book?
The things that I could remember about the culture. I think I remembered pretty much everything, but her story is just her own. But the little things like the taboos and the superstitions and all that sort of thing, those are real within Nigerian culture.

Are you currently working on another novel
Yes.

What is the novel about?
I can’t say.

Does it have a tentative title yet?
None.

How did you get in touch with Cassava  Republic, your Nigerian publisher?
They got in touch with me. I think somebody e-mailed them and said: you got to read this book. I think Bibi read it and then she got in touch with me.

How do you feel about the popularity of the book in Nigeria and the interest it has generated?
Actually, I was pleasantly surprised because I don’t live here. I live in London. And I thought Nigerians would resent me for writing about the culture when I live somewhere else. And I do get this kind of questions. But on the whole, I would say it’s been very very positive. And people like good fiction. This is a good book. So what I say to them is: Once you’ve read the book, come back and ask me the questions that you have and then we would have a discussion around that. But it is when people haven’t read it and they presume to know what you are talking about that I just say: No, we can’t have a discussion until you read it.

What actually inspired the book?
I lost my job and I was writing a different story about this girl, who is trying to get a revenge on her boss. And it wasn’t a very good story. But I ended up with Imagine This because her back stories, which were the general entries, were very powerful. So, I kept those and ditched everything else.

Did you envisage that you would someday enjoy this fame?
No.

What schools did you attend?
I went to secondary school here, Idogun High School. I went back to the UK and attended Plymouth University. I did Media and English (combined honours). I also did an exchange programme at the University of Massachusetts. Later, I worked in marketing for a telecoms company. And then, I went into consultancy with an IT company.