She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MA from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She also holds a PhD from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, having completed a thesis entitled "In the shadow of Ala. Igbo women writing as an act of righting" in 2004.
Chika Unigwe is the author of fiction, poetry, articles and educational material. She won the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition for her story "Borrowed Smile", a Commonwealth Short Story Award for "Weathered Smiles" and a Flemish literary prize for "De Smaak van Sneeuw", her first short story written in Dutch. "The Secret", another of her short pieces, was nominated for the 2004 Caine Prize. She was the recipient of a 2007 Unesco-Aschberg fellowship for creative writing, and of a 2009 Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for creative writing.
Jeff Unaegbu: You are very welcome, Chika. An average modern African woman is said to be facing difficult and shifting gender roles in that she finds herself working during the day and preparing food in the evenings and early mornings for her husband and children, without having much time to herself nor being very successful in making the man understand the pressure of the workload she faces, especially when he demands pleasure at night. What is your take on this situation and has any of your writings been able to address this issue, given that divorce rates, especially among literary and non-literary artistes, are beginning to rise because of shifting gender roles in Africa?
Chika Unigwe: Divorce rates are rising because more women are able to live independently of a man, they earn their own money and so on. How to survive alone, to bear the financial burden was a primary reason why many women stayed on in abusive relationships. I suspect also that divorce is not as frowned upon these days as much as it was in the past.
JU:Who or what inspired you into writing and at what age did you fall in love with the art?
CU: I met Flora Nwapa when I was a primary school pupil, and she made me, more than anything else at that age, want to be a writer. I adored her. I have always loved reading and my parents fostered that love by investing in books.
JU: Some poems in your first book, "Tear Drops", seem to smack of youthful ardor, especially the one which was a love poem to someone else. Please tell us more about this book.
CU: It was a book I wrote as a young woman; some of the poems there I wrote as a teenager, others were written while I was at the university. I was in my second year when it came out, so that explains its youthfulness. I dedicated the love poem to a boy I was in love with at the time.
JU: Some poems are written in esoteric terminologies that cut off readers interests. What do you advice writers should do to make poetry enjoyable and popular?
CU: I haven't written poetry in ages. I am also very wary of prescribing what a writer should or shouldn't do. Different kinds of poems appeal to different readers. There is a Belgian poet who combines poetry with Rockn Roll. He claims it makes it more accessible to people who would otherwise not listen to poetry. Some people agree with him, others don't.
JU: As a Nigerian writer living outside the country for sometime now, how has this change of environment affected your writings, seeing also that you are married to a Belgian?
CU: My being married to a Belgian has had less of an effect on my writings than my having moved to Belgium. When you move you experience things differently, experience different cultures, and since our writing mostly comes from within, you are influenced by all these. Other themes might have chosen me to write on them had I lived elsewhere.
JU: Back in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, you graduated from the English Department, could you relieve those moments, bringing into view how they helped you grow as a writer and what you have done or would like to do to give back to that university?
CU: Prof. Ossie Enekwe started a creative writing Course in my second year at Nsukka and one of the most enduring lessons he taught me was the art of observing. I remember submitting a story to him and he told me, I want to see the ants on that log of wood move. Ive never forgotten that.
JU: Your works from "Born in Nigeria" to "On Black Sisters Street" seem to explore themes such as loneliness, prostitution, grief and illness. Why do you address such themes and does this tendency comes from subconscious memories of a painful experience you may have had while growing up?
CU: "Born in Nigeria" was a short pamphlet I wrote as an undergraduate disillusioned with Nigeria, And it was only published because my dad was willing to pay for it. Its theme is completely different from that of OBSS. I had a regular happy childhood: two parents who never had a disagreement in our presence; brothers and sisters; a Raleigh bike; holidays in the village; a summer vacation in London thrown in. None of these experiences I'd describe as painful. What my works tend to have in common is an exploration of people who live at the margins of society. In the Phoenix, it is an immigrant Nigerian dealing with the loneliness and loss of a child: in OBSS , it was prostitutes.
JU: In order to encourage and motivate upcoming writers, could you kindly reveal to us the difficulties you went through to have your works published and how you overcame them?
CU: I was very lucky in the sense that I was discovered. I took part in a writing competition, and was called up and asked if I had more works to show. And then at the time I started looking for an agent. And at a Caine event in Oxford, I fortuitously sat at the same dinner table with a man who eventually became my agent, David Godwin. We had a good chat, I sent him my works and the rest as they say is history.
JU: You were elected the first foreign-born councilor in Turnhout in 2007. What informed your decision to run for election?
CU: I ran for a seat because I wanted to make a change. There's a Flemish saying that those who do not sit at the dinner table are forgotten. I wanted to be visible, to bring the marginalized to the centre of power.
JU: What advice do you have for upcoming Nigerian writers?
CU: Same advice I'd give to any budding writer, and the same I got: Read a lot, be open to constructive criticism, join reputable online critique groups; write a lot.
JU: Thank you Chika Unigwe for this enlivening interview. We hope to have you again soon for another charming session.
CU: Thank you.
Interview conducted April 2011. Appeared in Sunday Vanguard, July 3, 2011, p. 47.
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