ABOUT JUDE DIBIA:
Jude Dibia is the author of two well received novels; Walking with Shadows (2005) and Unbridled (2007). Dibia’s novels have been described as daring and controversial by readers and critics in and out of Africa. Walking with Shadows is said to be the first Nigerian novel that has a gay man as its central character and that treats his experience with great insight, inviting a positive response to his situation. Unbridled, too, stirred some controversy on its publication; a story that tackled the emancipation of its female protagonist who had suffered from incest and abuse from men. Unbridled was awarded the 2007 Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize for Prose (sponsored by NDDC/ANA) and was a finalist in the 2008 Nigeria Prize for Literature (sponsored by NLNG). Dibia’s short stories have been featured in the Caine Prize Anthology, One World: A global anthology of short stories and various online literary journals. Dibia was a recipient of a Commonwealth Highly Commended Award for his short story ‘Somewhere’ in 2010.
You can get excerpts from Blackbird here:
JEFF UNAEGBU: The great writer, I am pleased to have you in this interview! A book that begins with a prologue which is full of suspenseful action can possibly not be ignored. Oh yes, your book, Blackbird takes a straight flight into the minds of readers through its first few sentences (Get into the house. she will be alone. Finish her!) and then, it builds a cage in there for itself and other books flying in from your pen! Little wonder that its predecessor, Unbridled, was a finalist in the 2008 NLNG Prize for literature. Congratulations. Now, your characters are very deep and well-formed and you are able to develop a psychological database of human behavioral patterns. Omoniyi, the chief protagonist, managed to retain a nice disposition (“his humility and good nature threw most who met him”), despite the gutter of poverty and evil he swam around in and even got dirtied with. Were his trials, then, a form of circumstantial punishment for being somewhat effeminate and even possessing “a dangerous beauty” in physical form? And why would he remain so strong in having a conscientious mindset, yet so weak in the face of lustful temptations? Does this reveal that a gentle and good natured person can actually do something very bad when circumstances propel him?
JUDE DIBIA: Many thanks, Jeff for your kind words regarding my writing. The opening lines of Blackbird were inspired by the opening lines of Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which started with these lines: ‘They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they take their time. No need to hurry out here.’ Three simple, yet well intended statements. It was my, intention to set the pace of the story with something akin to tension and at the same time slowly reveal the complexity of the moment, the visible differences between the wealthy and the desperate in our society and the fragile glass wall that separates the two sides. I am great admirer of Toni Morrison; ever since I read her Song of Solomon I have been in awe of her writing prowess. So in a way, I have learnt that a character’s psychological make-up and those unseen factors that trigger him or her into action are equally as important as the visible conflicts within a story. I am very interested in this aspect of human nature. Like Paradise, there are four main characters in Blackbird; this was why it was also important to begin the story with a prologue which had nothing and everything to do with all the chief characters, and not just Omoniyi. Omoniyi’s trials, as you put it, were unconnected to his ‘dangerous beauty’; he was just a man without money or influence like so many others and what he went through are things a lot of people go through every day. At the heart of everything, we are all faced with choices and sometimes, circumstances dictate how we react.
JU: Chimaya, or Maya for short, comes across as a good, wise and yet unassuming personality. Would we say that she manipulated the rich white Edward using her feminine powers, including a rich singing talent, even without trying, or should we take it that any wise woman in the same economically harsh circumstances would do the same or should do the same? Aha, I am aware that Maya had “never truly considered herself poor because, for her, wealth [is] measured by how much… love existed in one’s home”, so, was it her struggle to retain love in her family that made her allow Edward to help her, when he could? Can a woman’s love for her poor husband make her open to the risk of allowing other men to take advantage of her in order to save the stress in the family? Please, don’t mind my weird questions and sub-questions style….
JD: Oh dear (smile), your first observation is certainly interesting, but not what I had in mind when I was writing the story. Like her husband, Omoniyi, Maya was desperate. She had a sick son, they were facing homelessness and she certainly was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She did what any mother would do, which is think of her child and family first. I wouldn’t say she knowingly manipulated Edward, but she was indeed aware that he was attracted to her. Did this help her in gaining certain favours? Maybe! Did she open herself to certain risks? Definitely. But like I said earlier, she was thinking of the best thing for her child and family at the time. Risks are things we forget when our families are threatened, don’t you think?
JU: Nduesoh suffered inferiority complex because of her ugly looks and was incredibly jealous whenever Edward leered at other women, especially the singer, Maya. She had a feeling of fulfillment (“felt born anew”) after she played the male role and made love to Omoniyi. Does this mean that some evil actions of people may be fueled from a desire to take a revenge vaguely connected with their victims or to cure themselves of their demons and not from the actual natural disposition of the predators to despoil the targeted victims?
JD: Nduesoh did not make love to Omoniyi. She took advantage of him, knowing she wielded more power (not physical, but social power). In essence, she raped him. Rape is not about sexual fulfillment or pleasure; it is simply about power – who wields more power! To her, in a twisted way, it was indeed a form of revenge. And yes, from research, it has been recorded that some people do turn into the very thing and do things that they abhor the most or feel threatened by. Nduesoh’s raping of Omoniyi was a manifestation of her fears, her anger, her regrets and so much more.
JU: Like Omoniyi, who felt a “growing disquiet” inside of him after being dirtied by Ade (scorpion) as a kid and by Nduesoh as an adult and then later “demolished” with a false belief that Maya was dead (as is evident in his abstract letters towards the end), the buildup of mass protest against government actions in the slums is evidently in the background of the your plots until its culmination in the demolition of Edward’s Oasis Hotel. Is this coincidentally built in when you were plotting this novel? If yes, do you want to subtly inject into us the awareness that like Omoniyi, Nigeria is good natured, however ravished by poverty (like Nduesoh who “was very much like this country…p.282”). And like Omoniyi, the country explodes quite often only to come back again to normalcy and commence the circle again, as may happen with Omoniyi beyond this novel? Or are these indices of the inner workings of your unconscious wish to deliver a nation through an explosive revolution rather than a gradual one? Pardon me….
JD: From the beginning, I always knew that there would be an explosion at the hotel. While I was doing my research for Blackbird, reading up newspaper accounts of the 90’s and early 2000 as well as reading up on groups like the OPC, I came across an article of a hotel in Ikeja that was raided by the police and explosives were discovered there. It was believed that the militant arm of the OPC were responsible for them. That account gave me the idea of the explosion at the hotel, which in a way was indeed the climax of the novel. And yes, I was consciously aware of the symbolisms I used in capturing feelings and sentiments with regards our nation. In a way, I guess I was trying to illustrate that things are wrong in our country and the government are not paying attention to the majority of the people. If you continue to ignore the needs of the masses, the common man, as if they don’t exist, one day there surely will be an uprising. Look at what is happening today with kidnappings and bombings! People are beginning to react to an insensitive ruling class.
JU: Blackbird as a novel is representative of the resilience of the black bird (“you can cut down their trees, clear entire forests even, and yet they will still fly; they keep singing [like Maya]”). Therefore, are black birds, as taken from this novel, symbolic of the resilience of Nigeria?
JD: You can say so. Nigerians are renowned for taking just about anything you dish at them. If you don’t provide them with light, they will find a way of getting light. If you don’t give them pipe borne water, they will dig boreholes for themselves in their homes. If you give them bad roads, they find a way of buying big cars to maneuver the potholes etc.
JU: Now, what advice do you have for upcoming writers?
JD: This will sound cliché, but it is true – read as voraciously and as widely as possible. Read books by authors writing in the genre and style you are interested in and learn to be open to criticism, it helps you become better. Also, there is no essence in being called a writer if you do not write.
JU: Thank you very much for this exhilarating interview, Sir Jude Dibia!
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