The challenges of writing in Igbo language (interview)

Emmanuel Ugokwe: I was born in a village in Imo State Nigeria. My father was formerly a teacher and so my mother. I came on the down line in a large family of nine. After receiving my primary education at a local mission school, I proceed to Iheme memorial grammar school Arondizuogu and secondary commercial school for my secondary school. I then enrolled at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria, for a course in Law and currently a student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka . I grew up in my humble village until at 6 when I left home to my maternal parents.. I lost the loving attention in these ten years or more I spent outside home and no one encouraged me as mother did. While with my grandparents I tried to adjust to life of old man and woman. They too were proud of me. I had the privilege to hear them speak from the wealth of their wisdom. Grandfather was a known man in the village and beyond. He had a large house that housed many strangers and close relations, he had a large expanse of land more than many of his contemporaries, and he had money too and stumps of domestic fruits. He also had a stream called by his name. He had acquired much wealth in his youthful years both in pourtharcourt and in the village. He had everything money could buy and it was really a privilege to be with them. I did many things and was not beaten, something which was unusual in my own home. They took me as the last son of the family for all their children had left home to the city. But they were strict and lived the life of old. I lost many things as I was growing up and it was a pain that I could never recapture those moments again. I had no young friend, I play and talk only like an old man and woman. I was with him everywhere. He was blind, I read for him, carried him by the hand and we chatted like comrades. He taught me to be patient and respectful and that I would be anything I would be.. Many things I should see and places I should visit were not possible. They placed a restriction to me. But I was but off than many of my elder brothers. There were many things mother did not know that I know about her parents. I know tradition more they do; I was more meek, calm, humble, easygoing, bendable, and adjustable. I would have inherited something tangible from him if he had been my paternal father. It was not in our custom for one to inherit anything from his mother?s kinsmen unless they want to do that out of will, but I am satisfied that I grew under his protective hand. They are both late now, I am taking it all by myself hoping that providence and passing of time will heal such painful wound in my heart and that of my love one.

I started writing in 1990 when I was five. I learned reading early enough because I enjoyed a privileged which many of my elderly brothers did not. We were mostly boys and they were very interested in themselves while I took to mother who taught me how to read and to write. At school it marveled the teachers that I could read even when I was barely 5 and I taught many of my classmates how to read too. Mother was interested to see me grow to a wonderful man and to make him proud with my knowledge. So she set out to the farm one morning leaving me and my old paternal grandmother at home. I took an Igbo bible and read the story of Adam and eve. I came to love that story so much that I wrote something about it. I cannot remember exactly what I wrote on but it was on the children of Adam and how they felt when they heard what their parents did. Mother came home and I greeted him with that story Cain and able. I wrote the story entirely in my own words. I did not copy from the bible. Mother smiled and praised me. That was the good part of mother. She praises me even in little thing. I saved that story for years and lost it when I left home to my maternal home where I spent the next eleven years or more. Father that day was proud of me and told me that his late uncle penned down all the names of men in their twenties in the early thirties during the colonial days. I must have inherited his nature in writing. When I talk he read meaning into everything I said. I kept writing since then in almost all genres and for all age brackets.

I love the language. I write in other language too, but Igbo to me is the language I first heard mother speak and I grew up to see other people around me speak the same language. It carries my identity, it make me what I am. I also write in Igbo because I was thought many proverbs which could not make a direct meaning in another languages and I put them in to my writing.

Proverbs and coordination. We have limited number of people who speak, read and write the language, it is a big challenge. You write what they will like to hear, what they can read, what they can hear and it will torch their heart and move them to action. Something that will keep the mind going. Writing in Igbo is not just sit pick your pen and write, no it is more than just doing that. So I sat organized myself and starts off and after that I read it all back to know if I would like that story if another person had written on it. I only give my pass mark after reading it myself.

I was so happy that I told myself well-done. It was beyond the power of my words when the news got to me. Though it was my third award for the year but writing in my mother tongue and making it on the list of Nigerian writers made me feel good about myself. Someone even called me Igbo man of letters for the year. He was right. I wrote in Igbo and I am proud.

I write in English more than I write in Igbo but I write differently. If you are an Igbo man you will find out that many things stand in the world of English and Igbo. So you write in different mood, setting, themes and interests. While many people read English and understand that some culture are the same, it is not so in Igbo. I write entirly to the test of the two world.

I am working on two new titles now and when they are out you will see it and I believe that the award made me stand still head high in my race to be a good writer of the time. I don?t feel easily intimidated especially in writing, I will ensure that I write what the world will like, the world of Igbo?s.

Appreciate your language first. Tell people that no mater how bird flies in the high heavens they would descend to the tree and so for any other flies. If we can write in our mother tongue, we promote yourself, we promote the world, we have the sense of belonging, we work hard to snatch from the west what they had taken from us that made things to fall apart in this part of the world. Writing in our mother tongues will promote unity in ourselves, we can have something to be proud of. It will create the importance of unity and harmony.
I am publishing four titles now and when they are out I will let you know.

(c) Interviewed by SUMAILA UMAISHA and published in the 28/2/09 edition of New Nigerian newspaper.

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