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Q. Can you tell us the genesis of your
first novel Waiting for an Angel?
A. Certainly. I started writing it when
I was a lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic in Bauchi that was between
1997 and 1999. I completed it in 2000 when I was working in Lagos
as a journalist. I first self-published it in Nigeria as a collection
of interconnected short stories with the title Prison Stories.
Then later I republished it as a novel-in-stories in the UK with
the title, Waiting for an Angel. That was in 2002.
Q. Before writing Waiting for an Angel
did you ever think of being a writer?
A. Oh yes. I was always going to be a writer,
all my life. I wrote two novels before I turned twenty. I was influenced
quite early by stories and books, and later by my professors at
university. I never really considered being any other thing but
a writer. I guess I always saw the world in terms of stories, with
beginnings and middles and ends, with lots of twists and conflicts
– and even, occasionally, with happy endings.
Q. The story in Waiting for an Angel
is well-crafted and fascinating: Can you share your motivation for
that novel?
A. It is a novel about a distinct period
in our history: the 1990s, or as some people term it, the military
years. It is a story about the lives and dreams and hopes that were
wasted by those draconian days – but it is also about some people’s
determination to survive despite all that darkness. The main character
is Lomba, a journalist falsely arrested by the regime. He is one
of the survivors and he proves in the book that though the body
may be imprisoned, the mind can still remain free. I lived through
those days and I wanted to write about it, to keep it as a record
of that moment in our history.
Q. How did you feel when you heard that
you had won the Commonwealth Award for the said novel? What first
came to your mind?
A. I was pleasantly surprised. The Commonwealth
is an old and valued book prize, so it is a big honor to be on the
list with the past winners. It also opens doors for one as a writer,
a prize winner. Prizes have come to assume a big significance in
the literary industry that for one to be taken seriously one has
to have these strings of prizes under ones name. We are not even
talking about marketing. Some people won’t buy your book unless
they see that winner thing on the cover. I am not sure if it is
all good – but that is the way the industry works.
Q. In your second and also successful novel
Measuring Time which won the Caine Prize, you displayed your
talent as a story-teller of modern times, drawing elements from
cultural, historical and political facts of Nigeria. What led you
into writing that novel?
A. Measuring Time was a novel I wanted
to write even before I wrote Waiting for an Angel. I’ve always
been fascinated by history, by culture, and how culture changes
with time. The African culture in particular has gone through so
much change since the contact with the West in the 18th
and 19th centuries. So the second book is a look into
that, a look at the new Africa and the forces that drive it. I do
this though the changing fortunes of one family over a few generations
– but the main focus are the twins, Mamo and LaMamo, and their father.
The story covers their lives from childhood to adulthood. Mamo is
the one that becomes a historian and through his writing he interrogates
the idea of history and culture. He is also a biographer and he
attempts to write the story of his family and friends. It is also
about the idea of power, and how sometimes culture is used as a
screen by people in power in order to cling to that position.
Q. Are Mamo, LaMamo, Lamang, Haruna, Iliya,
Asabar, Auntie Marina to mention a few, mere fictional characters
or they did exist in real life?
A. Of course they are fictional characters,
but I guess every fictional has an earlier life in a real character
somewhere, no matter how fleeting the influence. So I did model
these characters after some people I met, wholly sometimes, in bits,
sometimes. A mannerism here, a gesture there, but by the end of
it all, they are their own people. I always choose and situate my
characters carefully. I prefer to make them round, and memorable,
because I want them to remain with the reader long after he has
put down the book.
Q. In Measuring Time you
showed how much you care for women (female characters of your novel):
would you consider yourself as a feminist writer?
A. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself
a feminist – whatever that means. I don’t see myself crusading for
the rights of women, but I am also careful never to objectify them
or to idealize them, like some writers do. I grew up surrounded
by women, and I learned that they are just as human as any man,
so first and foremost I present them as people, not just as women,
but as people with their strengths and shortcomings and complexities.
Q. Are you trying to re-define patriarchy
and some cultural ethos and all they entail considering how you
attack people like Lamang in Measuring Time?
A. I wouldn’t say that Lamang is attacked
in Measuring Time. Again, I am careful with my characters,
I don’t make them totally evil or totally good, because in reality
no one is like that. Lamang is a character that has been through
a lot of disappointment, and because of that, it makes him bitter,
and he dies a bitter death. He is the kind of person who never pauses
to see the blessing they have, his children, for instance, and his
wealth, but he pushes himself to achieve more till one day he falls,
unfulfilled.
Q. Your style of writing in both Waiting
for an Angel and Measuring Time reminds me of Chinua
Achebe’s simple, straight-forward and storytelling writing style,
say in Things Fall Apart, The Man of the People and
Arrow of God: are you influenced by him?
A. I guess I am. It is hard to find an African
writer writing now who wasn’t influenced in one way or the other
by Chinua Achebe; he is such a huge presence. But I definitely don’t
consciously model myself after him. And as you can see, my idea
of the village and culture are radically different from what you
have in his novels. In fact, one of the reasons for setting my story
in the village is to show how false the idea of the village as a
pristine, constant repository of our African values is. Time has
happened to it.
Q. How would you describe your relationship
with Chinua Achebe?
A. I wouldn’t say I have a “relationship”
with Achebe. In 2005 he invited me to be the first Chinua Achebe
Fellow at Bard College, because of that I got to live next door
to him, and to work with him and to learn a few things from him.
That is the extent of my relationship with him. He is a very generous
and kind man.
Q. What audience are you writing for: Western
or African?
A. Nobody in particular. Or let me put it
this way: there isn’t an audience that I am not writing for. I write
for lovers of narrative where ever they may be.
Q. I read in one of the Nigerian dailies
(The Sun, I think) where you were being referred to as the
new Wole Soyinka of Nigeria. Soyinka is known for being pedantic
which to me, you are not. Why that comparison to him and not Achebe?
A. I really can’t answer that. Perhaps the
person making the comparison has his secret criteria. But it is
a big honor to be compared to Soyinka. He is a writer I admire a
lot, and his The Man Died did influence me a lot when I was
writing my first novel. That is one of the best prison literatures
I have ever read – I recommend it strongly.
Q. Your novels were published in UK and
US: Do you think that the ordinary Nigerian back home would be able
to afford buying a copy? Have you taken some measures to have your
books re-issued in Nigeria for that purpose?
A. Oh, yeah. My first novel was first distributed
in Nigeria by my British publisher, in conjunction with Longman
Nigeria. It didn’t work – like you said, the Penguin edition was
just too expensive, and for over three years my book was virtually
unavailable in my country, which is a painful thing for any writer.
But later we were able to buy back the Nigerian rights from Penguin,
for both my first and second novels. Last month both were issued
for the first time in Nigeria by my Nigerian publisher, Cassava
Republic. I just came back from my Nigerian book tour, which I think
was a great success. We ensured that the books sold for under a
thousand naira each, which is quite cheap if you compare that to
other novels selling for over two thousand naira.
Q. Do your writings find their place within
the black diasporic literary creation? How?
A. They are finding their place there, gradually.
I live here, and so my experience is often distilled through a diasporic
eye. But so far I have not made the diasporic experience a direct
theme in any of my novels – I have done a few short stories on that,
but not a novel, that will be in the future.
Q. During a writers’ session in Bamako
(Mali) in 2005 you were the only Anglophone African writer amidst
Francophone African writers. How did you feel being part of that
group whose writing language (French) is different from yours (English)?
A. It was fun. I made lots of friends –
Waberi, Mabanckou, Khadi, Melanie, etc. I couldn’t speak any French
so they acted as my interpreters. It was my first time in Mali,
and at a Francophone writers’ event. They are such fun loving people,
and very philosophical and methodical in their approach to literature.
It also made me take more interest in Francophone literature, up
to then I only knew the obvious ones: African Child, Ambiguous Adventure,
Mission to Kala etc – but I discovered that there is a new and vibrant
corpus of work being done by younger writers, very much like the
one in the Anglophone world. Unfortunately most of them are not
in translation, the few ones that are in translation are only issued
by small university presses, but I think with time they will become
mainstream in English and find a wider audience. This state of things
is such a sad one – we are divided by the accident of language.
You find that Nigerian readers know more about American and English
literature than they do about literature from Benin republic, or
Senegal, just because of the language gap. This is an area that
our local publishers need to look into, there is a potential market
there.
Q. Waiting for an Angel
was translated into French by Elise Argaud and she did a great job.
Is she translating Measuring Time as well? Do you have plans
to translate your novels into other languages besides French?
A. She has actually finished translating
Measuring Time and it will be out sometime next year. Waiting
for an Angel is out in many European languages including Italian
and Dutch and Swedish etc.
Q. What frustration do you encounter as
a writer?
A. The usual – not enough time to devote
to my writing. Initially, before I got published, it was the anxiety
of not knowing whether I’d ever get published. The writing scene
is such a big and complex universe, with lots of good and bad things
happening. The best a writer can do is to keep doing what he knows
best, to write as honestly as possible, never to be swayed by the
ephemeral glitter, the shallow praises, to always keep an eye on
history, on posterity.
Q. Are you currently writing another novel?
If yes, when will be out?
A. Yes, I am working on a short novel I
guess. I exhausted all my energy on the last one so this is going
to be much shorter. I have almost finished it, so it should come
out in a year or so.
Q. You are now at George Mason university
teaching in the Department of creative writing. What are your new
challenges?
A. Yes, I got here in January, 2007, and
it is almost a year now. It is a big change from being a fellow
at the University of East Anglia with nothing to do but write full
time, to now teaching full time. It is quite challenging, but others
are doing it and I am getting used to it gradually. It is fun to
work with young talented writers – I teach them, but I also learn
a lot from them. They are full of ambition and ideas.
Q. What other projects do you plan to initiate
at George Mason University besides your teaching activities / creative
writing?
A. I am working on a few things at the moment,
but I can’t talk about them yet.
Interviewer's Notes
Helon Habila was born in the North Eastern region
of Nigeria - in Kaltungo, Gombe Sate. He grew up in Gombe town where
his father worked for the ministry of works. His primary and some
of his secondary schooling were done in Gombe, but in 1982 his family
moved to Kaltungo when his father retired from the civil service.
Helon Habila completed his secondary education in Kaltungo in 1984.
He spent a few years trying to read engineering at the Tafawa Balewa
University in Bauchi, and at the Bauchi College of Arts and Science,
but after two years he dropped out and turned his mind to being
a writer. He spent two years at home and in that time he wrote two
novels, still unpublished, and in 1990 he went to the University
of Jos to read English. In 1992 a chapter from one of his novels
was published as a short story in an anthology, Through Laughter
and Tears. While in Jos he published a few stories and essays
in the local newspaper, The Standard. After his university
education Habila became a lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic in
Bauchi, from 1997 to 1999. His ambition while in Bauchi was to write,
but he soon discovered that he couldn't be a writer in Bauchi due
to lack of encouragement. And so he decided to leave Bauchi to join
some of his university friends who were now quite successful at
Hints Magazine in Lagos, Nigeria's cultural capital. He later
moved to Vanguard newspaper, Nigeria's fourth largest paper,
as Arts editor. By then he had started work on what was to become
his first novel, Waiting for an Angel.
While in Lagos he won a string of literary prices,
starting with the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) poetry prize
in 2000, for his poem titled "Another Age". He used the prize money
to self-publish his first collection of stories, Prison Stories,
which went on to win the Caine Prize in London in 2001. The winning
story, "Love Poems", is about a young Lagos journalist, Lomba, who
is imprisoned by the Abacha dictatorship while out on a routine
assignment. While in prison Lomba tries to stay sane by writing
love poems to imaginary lovers. The prison superintendent discovers
the poems and presents them to his girlfriend as his own, and from
there a strange relationship developed between Lomba and the superintendent.
Habila's self-published story beat such established writers as Nureeddin
Farah, Mia Coutou, and Lilia Momple to win the 2001 Caine Prize.
In 2002 Prison Stories was reissued by Penguin in the UK
and Norton in the US by the new title, Waiting for an Angel.
The book established Habila as the voice of a new generation of
Nigrian writers, signaling a radical departure from the traditional
Nigerian story established by writers like Achebe and others. The
book is an examination of the military dictatorships of the 1990s
in Nigeria through the eyes of a young journalist. Most critics
agree it is one of the best debut works to come out of Africa. 
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