“I’m interested in mundane acts of resistance”

Interview by Julia Stanton

Your novel focuses on the intricacies of female relationships, such as the connection between sisters, the relationship between mother and daughter, as well as queer female friendships. That is something that seems quite rare.

Yes, “Butter Honey Pig Bread” is a story about three women, Kambirinachi who believes she’s an Ogbanje (an Igbo term for evil spirit) and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. It follows the trajectory of Kambirinachi's life and jumps around in time. It was my intention to explore forgiveness, family and in particular female relationships.

For me, some of the most significant relationships are friendships, which is why the lost friendship between Kehinde and Taiye is so important in the novel. A lot of literature and culture focuses on romantic love. And while that's beautiful, it's not the only thing or necessarily the most nourishing or fulfilling relationship.

Where did the inspiration for “Butter Honey Pig Bread” come from?

It came from reading, and it came from returning to Nigeria after I finished university in the United States. I started writing “Butter Honey Pig Bread” in 2013 at an uncertain time in my life. There are so many writers that inspired me: Aiwanose Odafen, Chinua Achebe, Teju Cole or Chimamanda Adichie, to name a few.

The poem “Abiku” by Wole Soyinka stuck with me in particular. Abiku is Yoruba for spirit. It’s comparable to the traditional belief in Ogbanje in Igbo Cosmology. Ogbanje are believed to be born and die in early life, and then reborn in the same family, often repeatedly. This belief was something I wanted to explore.

“There was a time when these books would not have been published”

In Nigeria, same-sex relationships are illegal. You write openly about queerness, and in the past years, many  Nigerian writers have started to explore this topic in their work. Would you say there has been a shift in Nigerian literature?

I know many writers who have written about queerness non-stop in recent years. I do think there's a new confidence and a new boldness in writing about these topics, but it's not the first time. Jude Dibia for example wrote about male queerness in 2005 in “Walking with Shadows”.

I think some older Nigerian writers set a foundation, and now the newer generations of writers feel more emboldened to follow suit. There is also an audience for books about queerness, and there are opportunities for publication. There was a time when these books would not have been published.

Do you think the representation of queerness in fiction is leading to a change within Nigerian society?

I do think it’s pushing society forward, absolutely. Young people in Nigeria are celebrating pride, they are having drag balls, they're openly out. I couldn't fathom doing that when I was younger.

I felt like I had to leave the country to be myself — and I'm only 34. Today, I don’t necessarily think that would be the case. But at the same time, there is still a lot that has to happen politically.  It's hard to imagine the Same-sex Marriage Prohibition Act being lifted anytime soon.

“Migration and forced displacement do something to a person. I wanted to write about that”

The characters in your novel are constantly moving between different places. You yourself live in Canada now and you said you had to leave Nigeria to be able to truly be yourself. Did your own experience of living in the diaspora inform your writing process?

Yes, it did and still informs all my writing. When I lived in the US, I started to explore what it's like to be queer romantically, but also politically. I don’t think I could have done that at home. When I came back home to Nigeria, I knew that I was queer, and I knew that I didn't want to pretend to be someone I’m not.

I moved to Canada for graduate school. No matter what I write, it’s going to deal with diasporic experience in some form because that's what I'm interested in — and not just because I've lived it.

I went through the very documented migration path, but I know a lot of people who have been refugees or who are refugees, or undocumented asylum seekers. Migration and forced displacement do something to a person. I wanted to write about that.

Faith and queerness play an important role in your work, and you explore this in the novel. Taiye is queer and also religious and she finds comfort in her faith. Why did you want to focus on a character who reconciles faith and queerness?

A lot of the argument for why queerness is repulsive is that it's against God, or that it's not African. That is simply not true. As an artist, I'm very interested in mundane acts of resistance.

And so, for me, a way of approaching that was writing a character for whom there is no conflict between her queerness and her faith.

Your novel is named after food, as are the chapters. Taiye loves to cook and there are beautiful descriptions of food in the novel. What role does food play in this novel?

I love food and I like to read about women with shameless appetites for food, for life, for pleasure. Society fears and obsesses over food. Women are told: Don't eat too quickly. Don't let anyone see you eating. Don’t let yourself get too big. So, I wanted to write about a character who was just shamelessly being herself, who ate when she wanted and cooked what she wanted.

At the same time, I didn't want to deny the impact society can have on women's self-perception. This is why Kehinde, the more voracious sister, struggles with her body and body image. It was important to me to represent both in the novel.