Enit’ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya is a Nigerian writer and storyteller. His internationally acclaimed debut collection of short stories, How to Catch a Story That Doesn’t Exist, an audacious social commentary on same-sex relationships in Nigeria, was published in 2021 by IfeAdigo. His story, The Anatomy of Flying Things, made top finalist and central story in the 2023 Afritondo Short Story Prize Competition/ Anthology. His creative nonfiction, Paint it in a Color They Can See, won the First Prize at the Intercontinental French-Nigeria “The Green We Left Behind” Climate Change Story Contest. He also won the First Position in Africa at the Itanile African Journal Awards with his story, A Rehearsal of Shame. A recipient of multiple other awards and recognitions for writing, both on national and international levels, Enit’ayanfe’s poems stories and essays have been published in several journals and magazines home and abroad, including Brittle Paper, Isele, The Account, Kalahari Review, Afrocritik, The Shallow Tales Review, OBBLT, AfriHill Press, Akéwì Magazine, EgoPhobia, Eunoia Review, African Writer, Livina Press, Bending Genre, Angry Gable Press, Aayo, The Airgonaut, West African Space, Fiery Scribe Review, Arkore Arts, elsewhere, and anthologies such as The Muse 50. He is twenty-nine years old, lives in Southwest Nigeria with family and friends, and spends his days teaching, speaking, reading and writing. He tweets @OsumareAyomi.
IE: Firstly, I would like to say, that I am a fan of your voice and the boldness with which you tap into your work. I believe we all know what people say about the African culture. Some go on to say that, Queer Life is not African Life, and is against the African culture. Do you think this means Queer Literature is not African Literature? What would you say gives a work the crown, “African Literature?”
Enit’ayanfe: Thank you for your compliments.
My first introduction to Yorùbá deities was their queer aspects: Sàngó—the fiery god of thunder— braiding his hair and wearing eye makeup; Èsù—the deity of mischief—whose consciousness is deemed nonbinary; Olókun—of the seas—who is androgynous; Òsùmàrè—the agender rainbow god for fertility and blessings; and Olódùmarè—the Almighty Deity—whom the Yorùbá people see as genderless because They can manifest any type of gender.
Now, these mythologies are Yorùbá mythologies passed down from ancestor to ancestor and the Yorùbá are a whole nation in Africa. This means their folklore and stories are also African literature. So, yes, our African stories have always reflected queerness. Only very few writers like Wolé Sóyínká and D.O. Fágúnwà have taken the initiative to mirror those realities in their books [check “The Interpreters” and “Igbó Olódùmarè”].
Of course, there are many other generative Yorùbá concepts of queerness in African culture that you can find online—one of which is the “Adódìí men” (men who have sex with other men)—but let me stick, for now, to what I have verified.
IE: You said in a conversation with Salamander Ink, you write to dignify the downtrodden of the world, and about your new book, How to Catch a Story that Doesn’t Exist, you said it was your way to break down stereotypes. Because the narratives in your story are different, would you call yourself a New Testament Evangelist of African Literature? Where do you represent the promise of what African Literature is about or would you say you are instead here to lay down a foundation for another generation?
Enit’ayanfe: Wow, I’m so flattered that I am tempted to say, yes, I am a New Testament Evangelist of African Literature. But, seriously, I see myself as “the one who joins the important conversation.” I am only here to contribute to the positive sides of the discourse, the sides that humanize, dignify and realize our deeply nuanced stories of sexuality, sexual orientation and human nature in general.
I have read some books and stories by writers who, in a bid to elucidate homosexual affairs, have inadvertently given more platforms for homophobia to thrive with what they wrote. Yet there is hope. There are many young writers and even not-so-young ones driving new, unexplored and untainted narratives on homosexuality and I am fortunate to have used my book, “How to Catch a Story That Doesn’t Exist”, to join that conversation and speak my mind, too.
And yes, I want this generation and the coming ones to see their stories in books and see that they are not alone and so should not be unduly afraid.
IE: Because our theme is “Old and New Testament of African Literature” adopted from the Christian bible, pardon me for going a little bit into Christianity.
Some believers think that Old Testament teachings have to be discarded and that we to embrace only the New Testament teachings. Would you say that applies to African Literature too? That African Literature can no longer be defined by works of the past but that contemporary African writers are the future.
Enit’ayanfe: In your first question, I mentioned that old folklore and the ancient literature of Yorùbá people featured queer discussions and aspects. Therefore, I don’t see what this new generation of African writers is doing as “not defining African literature by the works of the past”. Rather, I see it as “a revisitation of the past that we are quick to forget”, “unburying our true culture”, and “returning home to our identity stories that we have deviated from, ironically because of foreign indoctrination”. This generation of African writers just wants to remind everyone of who we were before we let half stories define us.
That’s how people should approach the Bible, too. Our representations as humans and spirits are flawed and one-sided and, as long as we lose sight of what reality subsists in human conditions, we will have only one piece of a large god, of a large Truth. And that’s not good enough.
IE: In your essay with Isele Magazine, I have to say, that I adored the narrative with which you adopted to write the work. I adored how you kinda explained what being a Nigerian is. Ever since Ernest Ogunyemi’s Essay, Is Contemporary Nigerian Poetry Nigerian? there has been an argument about the bounds of Nigerian/African Literature. Some may argue that this shift is because to get published these days, you must write stories the Western market will appreciate. That, you must lose yourself as an artist to make a name. Do you think the Soyinka’s and Awoonor’s had to go through this change to make a name for themselves?
Do you think if they had gone through this shift, African Literature would be in a better place than it currently is?
Enit’ayanfe: Everything is propaganda. The West used the kind of literature that appealed to them to distract, subdue and reinvent Africans in the way they told their stories and, sadly, we still struggle with the vestiges of such malignance today. Because stories are the most powerful tools in the world, because words matter, words have been used to create dispossession and division among humankind so that humankind can be easily conquered. And if we have to be heard, we need a platform. Who controls this platform, and what do they want us to tweak in our narrative before allowing us on that platform? That’s the big question.
IE: I feel like it always comes back to that. “Who controls the platforms and what do they allow?” For example, the “Is like syndrome” says that, “if you want to get published, write like successful poets. if you want to be an artist, find your voice. Work that is like something else is easier to publish. Work that challenges will always have a tough road.”
Do you think this is true though? Or would you say that the African Literature of generations passed was affected by this? Also, do you think it is still a factor in African Literature?
Enit’ayanfe: Even as Africans, we are overly, intrusively critical of one another. I know how many times I have to adjust the rawness of my voice in a story before an African magazine will accept it. Most of my rejected stories which later get accepted were able to live thus in magazines that are not African. The rot is deep and we cannot keep blaming the West because even at the onset of this oppressive control to subsume the authentic African voice that banishes stereotypes about Africa, we have our predecessors who wrote valiantly, brilliantly, without minding what the white man thought Africa should be like. We have Chinua Achebe of blessed memory, Flora Nwapa of blessed memory, Ama Ata Aidoo of blessed memory and the same Wolé Sóyínká that you mentioned.
Yes, it is a factor in how African literature is perceived. But I have a creed: I will say it in MY VOICE. My voice is African because that’s the food I ingested while growing up and because I have immersed myself in African land. There is always someone out there that will eventually listen to me.
IE: Ha! Your creed is certainly one I tell myself from time to time whenever I create. It’s not always easy being true to oneself. But when you are, that is freedom.
In an interview with TINTRIBE, Nzube Nlebedim said, “Writers need to sell their stories to those who they want to listen to them. Our experiences need to be heard, as Africans. It would thus have been an unfair choice to settle to write predominantly in, say, Igbo. We might not have made so much impact.”
What would you say has been the impact of these sales tactics on African languages? I agree that we tell our stories in English and that doesn’t mean the story changes but do you think it compounds to a loss of Identity in our way to get to the Western world?
Also, on the contrary, to say “we might not have made so much impact,” I think writers like Paul Coelho, Franz Kafka and other writers who wrote primarily in their language to connect with their people first before the outside world proved that it is possible to write in your language first and still make it.
Do you think if the old generation writers like Achebe and co had written in their native language maybe that would’ve given us the platform to also do the same?
Fela Kuti & Bob Marley sang in “native” tongues, and I believe that because of them, these languages were embraced and even foreigners banged on them. Do you believe this is possible with writing?
Enit’ayanfe: Well, I am a big sucker for African tones in African writing. If I’m reading a novel or a poem written by an African who grew up in Africa, I want to hear the African tones in it. I want to read you and feel like I’m not just running my eyes over your words but I can also actually hear you speak the same way you would speak to me if we ran into each other in an African market or at an African party. I want to hear “home” in your words. Or else I would close the book.
Now, do you always have to do that by writing in an indigenous African language? No. I grew up reading Yorùbá novels bought me by my dad, and I will tell you that when I switched to English fully, I went for my mother’s Pacesetters novels because those novels contained stories that do not just sound African but also FELT African. Stories that echo the kind of language I knew, the kind of stylistics and semantics that I did not need many words to get instantly. I cherish that so much!
I believe that the kind of art we consume leaves a major imprint on how we return art. If I listen to a lot of Bob Marley or Lucky Dube or Angelique Kidjo or Fela Aníkúlápó, then they will reflect in my works. Most of the books I’ve read by Elechi Amadi, Achebe, Sóyínká, Osofisan, Adichie and Buchi Emecheta appealed immensely to my African sensibilities because they were properly sprinkled with native words and proverbs. Now, I have not read Coelho nor Kafka, but I’m grateful forever to writers like Sefi Atta who write in English but still manage to sound deliciously, unbendingly Yorùbá that you just don’t want the book to end!
Whether the West wants it or not, they have applauded and awarded our writers here for their stories that are diverse and authentic even in tone and diction, and that’s just right! Besides, the language of true literature is universal, or else why would some Africans I have met love Indian and Korean songs so much?
IE: Wow! I truly enjoy the confidence with which you use to speak your truth. Tell us something, If you were given the sands of time, what history of African Literature would you change?
Enit’ayanfe: Not “change”, just expose, and that is the sexual history of Africans. Our earliest ancestors knew people that were just as queer as us the descendants; they just happened to escape the onslaught of Western politicized religion that their immediate successors bowed to. I want to be the bridge between these gaps of time and identity. I want to join forces and undo the lies. I would bring more honesty and less conformity to African literature. The other half-cooked stories have been undone by my forebears in literature: that we are dirigible, glorified monkeys and we all live in huts and that we have all seen lions before.
IE: History sometimes is like carrying bricks of blocks on our heads, and I think this exposé could be an interesting relief.
Again, from your conversation with Salamander Ink, you speak of how your journey as an artist stems from writers like Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri and Ngugi wa Thiongo. Do you think that they’re the “Old Testament” of African Literature? Does their craft still hold enough relevance? Considering that they are the Old Testament of African Literature and you are a part of the New Testament, what is your hope for African Literature? What advice would you give to upcoming writers still finding themselves?
Enit’ayanfe: Ben Okri, Nwapa, and Ngugi wa Thiongo and doyens like them are definitely like the honest people of the “Old Testament”, the ones who knew there was something off with the story, people like Jacob (who disagreed violently with God’s angels), Joseph (who was so meek and yet so dignified by his integrity), Abigail, the wise and so on.
Writers like Achebe, Adichie, Sóyínká, Okri, and Ekwensi all made it easy for us to remember who we are, and what we should continue to seek in the “New Testament”. And they are still with us! Going strong! They will always be relevant because their efforts created this platform for us. Besides, Adichie is not far from our generation because her truths are so undying they start whole conversations. And did Prof Wolé Sóyínká not just release a new book, like July itself?
I have astoundingly high hopes for African literature because these Africans are not going to get tired of telling their own stories in whatever diction or setting they choose! And that—the ability to slip into your type of Africanness anywhere you are or grew up in and tell deeply human, deeply honest stories—is what I call authenticity. This makes me optimistic.
Who am I to advise upcoming writers when I am one myself? I can only repeat stuff I say to myself all the time:
Please, write. Write on ANYTHING, IN ANY WAY. Work at your own pace and not in any competition to outrun people whose paths are different. We all have the same destination: to give voice to someone and something either out there, or inside us. So write what you want. But make sure you are telling a story YOU REALLY WANT TO TELL, not stories you feel are “popular”. That is the only way you can “find yourself” (this expression feels weird). Be careful of getting lost in the famous voices. Let your voice shine; THAT IS WHO YOU ARE! Always remember that there is always someone out there who wants to read what you wrote, and who is waiting for your call. That is what will prop you back to your feet on days you feel faint on this journey. Always remember that.