Lola Shoneyin is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet (often classed in the feminist mould), having published three volumes of poetry: So All the Time I was Sitting on an Egg (1998), Song of a River Bird, Ovalonion House (2002), and For the Love of Flight (2010). In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival’s Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Lola won the PEN Award in America as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa Award for prose in Nigeria. She was also on the list for the Orange Prize in the UK for her debut novel, The Secret of Baba Segi’s Wives, in 2010. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she runs the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival. In 2017, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper. In June 2020, Nexflix announced a series adaptation of Lola Shoneyin’s award-winning novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.
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The Muse: Your debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, for which you are widely known, was published in 2010. Before this, you had published three poetry collections: So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg (1998), Song of a River Bird (2002), and For the Love of Flight (2010). Would you say your foundation as a poet influenced your craft as a novelist? If yes, how?
Lola Shoneyin: At the time I was writing my books of poems, I was also writing fiction on the other side. My unpublished collection of short stories, Woman In Her Season, won the ANA (Oyo State) fiction prize in 1998, which is also around the first time that I completed my first unpublished novel. Without a doubt, my creative energy is much more alive when I am writing poetry, perhaps because of my loving relationship with language and the manner in which my mind responds to it. I’ve always loved playing with words, sounds, and literary devices. It is a joy to bring all this into fiction. The lines blurred along the way and I stopped seeing them as contrasting forms of creative expression.
The Muse: You founded the Book Buzz Foundation in 2012 as a means to promote literature and literacy in Nigeria. Through that organization, you have embarked on projects like the Ake Arts and Book Festival, KABAFEST, Ouida Books, and One Read amongst others. How would you assess your achievements so far? Do you think the reading of African literature and the perception of African literature in the country have improved?
Lola Shoneyin: Over the last eight years, we have invited and hosted over nine hundred writers at both festivals, celebrating writers who are working on the African continent, and those in the African diaspora. We’ve also been more proactive in engaging writers from French-speaking Africa. We’re extending our invitations to writers in the Caribbean and also to America and South America. We believe in the importance of creating an environment where people can learn from their different experiences, especially in relation to the black experience. We use the themes explored by our writers as a take-off point for accessing and excavating ideas through dialogue. We don’t shy away from difficult conversations or the depth and complexities of Africanness. I think we’ve generally been successful in achieving our primary goals: to promote, develop and celebrate creativity on the African continent. We’re very proud of our creative hub.
The Muse: The telling of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives springs from your experiences with polygamy, from stories passed on to you. Recent times have seen the number of polygamous households dwindling due to contact with Western ideals, among other factors. Do you still see polygamy as a problem?
Lola Shoneyin: I am not sure that there has been a decrease in numbers. For me to believe this, I would need to see a massive increase in the number of choices and opportunities that are open to women and girls. If anything, the widespread poverty, insecurity, and deprioritizing of education will lead to an increase in the incidences of polygamy. When girls have choices and women have opportunities, success follows. With regard to polygamy being a problem, it is as much of a ‘problem’ as it has always been. People like to link it to religion – especially Islam – but it is a cultural phenomenon. The issues and the psychological fallout have not changed. The fact that polygamy means that women are stitched together in a bitterly competitive environment is still true. Whether polygamous marriages are a toxic environment to raise children in, is still a valid question. But the same can be said of many monogamous marriages too. We must stop being afraid of doing away with aspects of our culture that do not serve us. We need to think less about what our culture dictates and harder about what works for us, what is fair, and how much we are looking after the vulnerable in our societies.
The Muse: Is the writer morally accountable for his or her work? Should the writer be judged, or should certain expectations be made of the writer as a symbol of social change?
Lola Shoneyin: For a writer, creative freedom to write about the themes and stories that interest them is critical, so that we don’t stifle creativity. When writers become more concerned with acceptability than the creative process, that is problematic. Writers should be able to write whatever they want to write, whether it’s a personal story where they’re only exploring their individuality, their family life, their communities or their continents, or even a continent that doesn’t exist. I don’t dwell on the idea of moral responsibility in the context of my writing. I explore my ideas, and I expect those ideas to be challenged by other creative people with deeper insight.
The Muse: In essence, you’re saying that a writer should be able to write whatever they want to, and write freely?
Lola Shoneyin: Yes, I believe that this has to be the starting point. I understand the idea of responding to the realities of the time, but this has to be secondary in the realization of the creative work.
The Muse: Baba Segi’s household is reflective of a society where much importance is given to motherhood, marriage, and the ability to maintain order in their homes. Through the individual narratives of his four wives, we see their personal stories, dreams, achievements, and the ways that they have been suppressed to meet the expectations of society. Do you believe literature could make a direct impact on the roles and perceptions of women in African society?
Lola Shoneyin: It was very important to me for the women in Baba Segi’s household to be able to speak for themselves, to have prominent and memorable voices in the novel. Backstories provide context, and the exploration of these is very on-brand for me. I examine the actions of others and even my own through the same lens. I am intrigued by the connections between events in our childhood and the extent to which they impact the adults we become. It is very often a straight line. Literature continues to have a direct impact on society. We have seen this happen with Chimamanda Adichie’s works and how they have injected a sense of purposeful feminism in African women of an entire generation.
The Muse: In your interview with The Guardian Life, you revealed that the Ake Arts and Book Festival was set up as a means to promote dialogues on African literature and culture among Africans, because you often found yourself in a defensive position when called to discuss African literature in the West, being one of a few black, African writers in such events. Do you still feel that way? Are you a lot more confident about how African literature is viewed and discussed in literary spaces in the West?
Lola Shoneyin: When discussing your work outside Africa, the questions can be startling. The work is almost always expected to be a damning social commentary on Africanness, neglecting its diversity and complexities. Questions are often not about process or craft or storytelling. It doesn’t bother me though because, with time, you understand that people can ask what they like but they can not control your answer. African writers definitely need more spaces where they can talk amongst themselves without a threatening non-African gaze. I’m more interested in how African Literature is viewed and discussed in Africa. I am interested in developing our own literary blocs. I am more concerned with what somebody from Namibia thinks about my book, or somebody from Congo, or somebody from Senegal, or Botswana, than how the West rates it.
The Muse: The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives has been adapted for the stage in the UK and in Nigeria. Indeed, the flow of language, the depiction of characters, brings forth vivid, animated pictures in the reader’s mind. Did you initially intend to write the story as a stage play before settling for a novel? Or did you write the novel genre having this in mind?
Lola Shoneyin: I heard the story of Baba Segi when I was fourteen years old and I was determined to write it as a stage play, as some sort of response to Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and The Jewel. I wanted to write something that illustrated that women had agency and how central and daunting ordinary survival can be for them. Fast forward to 2006. I was living in the UK and I had failed to find a publisher for my second fiction manuscript. You could say that I wrote Baba Segi out of frustration and melancholy. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was my third fiction manuscript. Writing a novel has always been on my bucket list.
The Muse: Your portrayal of the characters in this novel is devoid of any attempt to sugar-coat, or idealize. The women, as well as the men, are complete with their individual sexual fantasies and exploits, attempts at deceit, strive for economic independence, as well as the need to protect their interests at all costs while retaining their humanity. What would you want your readers to learn from these characters?
Lola Shoneyin: My sugarcoating skills are generally very poor. It is important to me that my writing is unpretentious, accessible, and relatable. A lot of people who have read the book tell me that I write as I speak.
The Muse: Do you see the end of your novel as an example of what you find most important: “the humanity, how a family deals with really serious, life-shattering challenges”?
Lola Shoneyin: In this case, it was a choice between love, and what one might term as a society’s recommended response. A lot of our menfolk find themselves in situations where they are caught between doing what their hearts want and doing what they believe their cultural traditions demand. One of the significant questions that I explore in the novel is the meaning of ‘fatherhood’. Is it the act of contributing sperm, or being present and nurturing a child to adulthood?
The Muse: Thank you so much for your time, Ma.
Lola Shoneyin: You are welcome.