by Francesca Uriri

“African literature can be cool, fun and sexy; it should speak to every aspect of people’s lives” so says Ainehi Edoro of Brittlepaper.com. She talks about art, her unshakable commitment to African Literature, and how the women are taking over the African literary scene. She is the Leading Lady for the week; be inspired!

You are the founder of Brittlepaper.com; what’s the idea behind the site and why did you think it important to set it up?

There have always been Africa-focused websites publishing original fiction and book reviews, but I felt that a space needed to be created to connect African literature with fans in a more fun and intimate way. Brittle Paper is about rebranding African literature as cool, fun, and sexy. African literature is not this serious body of work always dishing out weighty ideas on politics and history and colonialism. It can be silly and fun and lovely. I want people to experience African literature as something that speaks to every aspect of their lives—sex, fashion, gossip, celebrity culture, and a desire for genuinely entertaining stories. I’m also passionate about sharing African literary history with the younger generation. Brittle Paper is how I find ways to make this history cool and accessible.

How did you come about the name ‘Brittlepaper?’

 My boyfriend at the time [we’re now married] took me to New York City where he planned to propose. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. We were dinning at a sushi restaurant when the question of what to name my blog came up. He’s into web development and design and had been on my case about starting a blog. So we spent the evening talking about possible names for blogs. It came down to “Papers and Marionnettes” and “Brittle Paper.” Brittle Paper stuck because we thought it served powerfully as a metaphor of life and writing in a digitized, post-paper world.

Why the interest in African Literature?

African literature is a genuinely lovely thing. It’s taken me a long time to get to feel this way about African literature. But the more I study it the more I realize that from 18^th century Swahili poetry, to the Ozidi Saga, to early 20^th century Zulu novels, to Amos Tutuola’s Outrageous Universe, Achebe’s classics, Soyinka’s mind blowing poetry, Ifa literary corpus, Lauren Beukes’ speculative fiction, African literature is a massive archive of some of the most outstanding, innovative, and generative concepts, ideas, and aesthetic forms. Who won’t be interested in that?

What’s your take on the reading and writing culture in Africa, particularly Nigeria, is it growing?

There’s more writing happening today on the continent than ever before. We are living in the middle of an African literary renaissance, and it feels great. 

There’s also a lot of reading going on these days, far more than was the case 20 years ago. If you’re thinking of reading more broadly in terms of online articles on everything from news to fashion to music, yes Africans are reading a lot. But are we reading as much novels or poetry as we should? I’m not entirely certain.  I flew through Rwanda on my way to Nairobi two years ago and was a bit saddened by the collection of books in the modest airport bookshop. No fictional work. No poetry. Mostly motivational and religious books. But then it’s quite possible that Africans are consuming stories and poetry through other outlets and devices.

What does Art mean to you?

Art for me is not so much an object as it is a process.  It’s about inviting people to see, feel, and experience differently. Art is Fela asking people to listen differently, Achebe telling the world to see Africa’s past differently, and Tutuola asking people to imagine differently.

Describe your love for books, why do you think reading is important?

Can I be 100 percent honest and tell you that my love of books and reading is a painfully cultivated love? It didn’t come naturally. I’ve met lots of people who say they’ve always loved reading from a tender age. I won’t know what that feels like. I didn’t grow up loving to read.  I found reading an endlessly laborious activity. I grew up in a struggling, working class Nigerian household and from an early age it was ingrained in you that doing well in school was your ticket out of poverty. As a result, even though I had a healthy reading habit, it was always tied to work, to study, to exams. But by the time I was 14, I knew there was something missing in my relationship to text, which explains why I had this fantasy about falling in love with the act of reading. My last year of secondary school, I decided I’d force myself, if that’s what it took, to find pleasure in reading. So I’d go to Oba Market in Benin City and buy cheap, battered copies of whatever I could find—Romantic poetry, literary biographies, obscure Victorian novels. I’d read them. Understood very little, but I stuck with it. In the midst of this rather senseless labor of reading, I’d find something that blew my mind away. I still remember being stunned by Lord Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon” and Eliot’s Middlemarch. Over time, these texts began to speak to me in a real way. I realized I didn’t have to try too hard any more. Reading became something I craved and enjoyed. Since then, reading has become a deeply pleasurable and addictive act. But getting there has not been easy o! Lol.

To answer your second question, I think most people read just about as much as they need to. Does everyone have to read as much as people like me do? Not at all. Reading is not the only way to encounter the world of ideas. There are other ways to consume ideas and media that is not reading. For example, film is as much a legitimate way of thinking about the world or connecting with the world as reading is. I don’t want to privilege reading as some kind of superior way of connecting with ideas.

You have a clever way with words, is publishing a novel part of your future plans?

I’m not so much interested in writing novels as I am in studying them as historical, theoretical, and formal objects. Immersing myself in the African literary archive, reading African novels published as early as 1907 to our present day—that’s my turn on. In the context of the broader African literary community, I see my role as a very specific one. I’m a literary scholar and blogger, and it’s an exciting position to be in. Chimamanda Adichie’s work, for example, is to write novels not to study them. What that means is that even though I can’t write a novel, I know and understand the inner workings of African novels much better than she could ever dream. We can’t all write novels because some of us actually have to take a step back and tell the story of the African novel itself. We have to chronicle the life of the novel in Africa. We have to dissect the African novel, study it, analyze it, critique it, theorize it so we can tell the world what’s cool about it. That, to me, is far more exciting work than writing a novel.

Which is your favourite genre? Poetry, prose or drama?

There are poets like Soyinka or the Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, who can get me weak in the knee any time any day. But I’m #TeamNovel, through and through! Why else would I be writing a dissertation on African novels?  Novels are magical things. The way they can call an entire world into being is border-line mystical. Being a novelist is like playing god, which I imagine has to be a lot of fun. Besides, novels immerse readers in fictional worlds in a way that other art forms can’t. That’s why I have mad respect for novelists, even the bad ones. It takes a lot of work and heart to write a novel. As for drama, maybe I’m just not cultured enough, but there has never really been any love there.

Who are your favourite writers?

Not in any particular order:

Dostoyevsky because his Brothers Karamazov is still the most powerful reading experiences I’ve ever had. Tutuola because he has a beautiful mind. Soyinka for the brutal complexity of his work. There’s something sweetly masochistic about reading Soyinka’s poetry. Beukes because she’s one of the most daring African novelists I know. She’s okay taking risks with her writing, and that’s one thing I respect in writers. Kafka because he is an African at heart. Achebe because he buried Joseph Conrad’s ghost.

What drives you?

Commitment to an idea. The moment I intellectually and emotionally latch on to an idea, I become physically invested. I put in all the labor required to bring it to fruition. That’s the only way I can explain my obsession with African literature. The way I see it, African literature is something the generation before me worked so hard to establish. I’m committed to doing my bit to preserve it and to figure out the way forward.

You seem to be very interested in culture and arts, why is this so?

Because I don’t have a head for the sciences and have no interest in the social sciences. I’m an ideas woman. Armchair philosophizing is my favorite past time. Lol. I can sit down and read and think and talk about concepts and forms and history all day. But that’s about I can do.

What is your personal mantra?

It’s a line from the hook on Dagrin’s “Ghetto Dream” track:

I realize that I’m married to the game and me and my bitch’ll never break up.

It’s beautiful. It’s saying, look its not just about dreaming but having an unbreakable commitment to the dream or the idea. When I’ve written a million drafts of a dissertation chapter and still haven’t come close to figuring it out, I want to walk away, to give the whole thing up. But that’s when I hang on to Dagrin’s words with my life ‘cause it’s saying: You never, ever abandon the game. It’s just not done. Period.

Name 3 women you admire and why?

I admire my mother. I’m still trying to crack her code of success. She didn’t get much in terms of formal education. And there was a time when she sold oranges in the streets of Ibadan to supplement my Father’s modest soldier’s income. But today, she’s running a thriving business and has been instrumental in pulling my family out of poverty. Her commitment to hard work, coupled with a dogged refusal to stay poor and disempowered are aspects of her character that I hold on to. If I can be half the woman she is, I’d have arrived.  I admire my dissertation chair, Nancy Armstrong. She has one of the most brilliant minds I know. As a teacher, she’s excellent in that mind-blowing sort of way. Taking her class on gothic novels made me decide to study African novels. She’s also just really generous with her time and her ideas. I admire Linda Ikeji. She’s a blogging miracle, and many of us are inspired by her work. A successful blogger creates the right content, grows a sizable fan-base, and stays relevant. Sounds easy, right? Nah. It’s hard, back-breaking work. But Linda makes it seem so effortless. 

Are women writers more hesitant in pushing out their work, and why do you think this is so?

I don’t see much hesitation, to be honest.  There are more African women publishing novels today than men. Two of the three most successful novelists on the African literary scene are women: Adichie, Beukes, and then there’s Teju Cole. Beukes and Adichie work with some of the most powerful literary agents and publishing houses, so they get their work out there. Even Soyinka has noticed. In a 2011 Guardian UK interview, he admits that in the contemporary African literary scene, the women “are beating the living hell out of the men.” Lol.

You’re finishing up your PhD at Duke University, describe the journey for us.

It’s been a weird, frustrating, inspiring, humbling, eye-opening journey. Phd is supposed to be the terminal degree, right? The last and highest degree you can get. It’s supposed to prove that you are an expert. What they don’t tell you is that the first step to achieving this mastery, which is itself a fantasy, is realizing that you don’t know shit. It’s the most heartbreaking moment but also the most beautiful moment in the journey—when you realize that in spite of all you’ve read, all the knowledge you’ve accumulated, you’re still only scratching the surface of your chosen project and that you’ll probably never cease to be a student or a “learner” (in the Nigerian sense of the word).

The best part has been having a side hustle as a blogger. Blogging has made me a better thinker and a better writer, and it’s also given me a place to let off steam. After spending the day writing a dissertation chapter about why Amos Tutuola is the best thing since slice bread, there’s nothing like taking a break to blog about steamy sex scenes in African novels. 

All in all, no regrets.

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Follow Ainehi Instagram and Twitter @brittlepaper

Photo credit: Dare Komolu-Johnson

 

The Leading Ladies Africa Series is a weekly interview series that focuses on women of African descent, showcases their experiences across all socio-economic sectors, highlights their personal and professional achievements and offers useful advice on how to make life more satisfying for women.

It is an off-shoot of Leading Ladies Africa; an initiative that seeks to effectively mentor and inspire women, with particular emphasis on the African continent.

Do you know any woman of African descent doing phenomenal things? Send an email to [email protected] and we just might feature her.