‘Good literature demands the life of the writer’

Dul Johnson, an award-winning scholar and playwright, in this interview, speaks on his works, and particularly why it takes him several years to complete a book. Excerpts:

IT took you almost a decade to publish your latest books, Deeper into the Night and Melancholia since you last published Why women wouldn’t make it to heaven, which was also published years after your first, Shadows and Ashes. What informs the long time passage between your publications?

You are right; it has taken more than ten years for me to publish something since Why Women Wont Make It To Heaven. But I think that I’ve more than made up for it by coming out with two books, a full length novel and a play. In fact, the novel has been long-awaited by those who knew when I started work on it. And I have also expressed the hope that the long wait was worth it. It took this long for two reasons. The cheapest reason would be the lack of time to concentrate on the work, but it was also the case indeed. But the real reason was my realisation that good literature demands not just time, but the life of the writer; your heart, your attention, your energy, your love. Sometimes, it demands your tears. Once you come to this realisation, you cannot rush it. This is not to claim that I’ve given this work the much it deserves, but I’ve done my best in the circumstance. As I read or hear readers’ responses, I always wish I could undo history.

What inspired Deeper into the night? Considering that for many writers, the destination imagined is not always the destination reached, what did you have in mind when you set to write the novel, and did you realise it in the end?

Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi’s review of the novel gave me a smile. What it tells me is that a critical reader can find the writer’s destination. If not wholly, at least to a large extent. The word inspiration would be too nice here. I wish to talk about the compulsion, in the sense of the push, rather than an inspiration. I wanted to; I needed to comment on power; how it is acquired and abused. But in particular, I was worried about how we make and raise devils in the name of heroes in times of threats to our corporate existence. This happened a lot during the crises in Plateau State and other parts of Nigeria. I see it as a dangerous trend, and thought I should open our eyes to it before it is too, too late. True, for many, my novel is too late in coming. But the unknown future is far larger and more important than the past. Deeper into the Night calls upon us to learn lessons from the past. As to whether or not I was able to realise my goal; to get the reader to that destination, is left for the readers and the critics. But I do sincerely hope that I have been able to get them there.

Leadership, settler issues and a dose of Tarok culture seem to be at the heart of Deeper into the Night. It also seems that you have examined them from different perspectives. There are indications that if you had followed the path of the settler/indigene crisis, the book might have found its way to being a classic. What informed your leaving that path to concentrate on leadership and internal communal crisis as evidenced in Mamzhi taking centre stage?

There are always many different ways to skin a cat. The plot/storyline in the hands of a different writer with a different ideology would certainly have produced a different outcome; perhaps a masterpiece. But as you indicated in your previous question, a writer focuses his mind on something he wants to share with the reader; a destination he wants to take all to. This dictates the choice of how the material would be handled. The way the writer handles his material reveals to us his mind. Indeed, it is the hardest part of writing; making those decisions consciously. It determines your diction and your choice of words. It determines the tone of your work. It determines your characterisation. It determines many things. Let me return now to the main question. I’m not sure that I’m capable of writing a classic even if I had toed the line you suggest. But then, I was circumscribed by my thematic preoccupation—acquisition and abuse of power—which actually has wider implications for my personal ideology. In my serious fiction and film, I’m always looking for balances: of ideologies, faith/beliefs, power, points of view, among others. I do not easily award victory to any side. I want to live in a world in which we can always understand one another. I like to build bridges. The settler/indigene crisis is important to the story and it is palpable in the story. But it is not as important a take home message as the theme of power acquisition and abuse. This is partly what Mamzhi epitomises.

One thing I need to mention here; in the novel, I tried very hard to do a multilayered story in which every reader will find something and someone to like, as well as to dislike, or even hate me about. It’s my way of achieving that balance of forces I talked about earlier. People are born neither saints nor devils. We acquire these attributes as we grow up, depending on the circumstances around us!

Melancholia is a play that mirrors the Nigerian and African political drama—pun intended—through Mumude and his interesting partners and associates. Considering it is a near-realistic portrayal that could have been tragic, what informed your decision to make the play comedy?

A tough question. If I tell you that I know why I turned it into a comedy, I would be lying. The truth, though, is that the Nigerian political drama to me is a comedy. I think it is wise for us to laugh so that we do not cry. Look carefully at Nigerian politics; the bulk of those who get into the offices via “electoral processes,” and what they do when they get there. Isn’t the whole thing a comedy? Now, it is not only the elected person; what about the persons they appoint into important offices? Does it give you any good feeling about our political system? I get the feeling that we are always having one Mumude or another.