Orode walked slowly on the wooden bridge. The water beneath him assaulted his senses. It smelt of tar and shit. He strode across the wooden planks. Reeds broke the surface of the murky river. Toads croaked loudly. Mosquitoes buzzed…
I started this story during the pandemic after an enthusiastic workshop experience. Everyone wanted the origin story of a character who was raised by two dads who are branded militants by the Nigerian government for fighting the infiltration of oil companies in Southwest Nigeria using unorthodox and frankly, illegal methods.
The protagonist in this piece, Orode, was a better entry point than Efe, the man who makes him a militant. I wanted to present the actions of Efe, who later becomes the most wanted man in the region, in the most nuanced way, and the way I did so was to let the reader see him through the eyes of another who loves him.
Homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria and currently carries a prison sentence of fourteen years. I find that many (emerging) Nigerian writers hold space for the LGBTQ+ community in their stories. I wanted to do the same, but I also wanted to take apart the notion that homosexuality is a Western invention and that it wasn’t present in Nigeria’s precolonial cultures. History disagrees. What might not have been present was the Western context as we have it today. Thankfully, the millennial and Gen Z generations insist on living their lives out loud, but in the 1960s when this story is set, the unspeakable will remain unspoken. Orode’s love for Efe will remain one “unaccompanied by desire. He dared not ask, tell, hope, or wait. Orode did not want a love story. Love stories are long and performative, forever in search of a happy ending. Orode just wanted a life. That, he was going to get.”
The longer I live in the West, the more I fear I will stop being able to capture the essence of home. It is all I know, it is all I used to deeply care about. Now, subjects like race and racism, immigration, the American Dream, the genocidal and colonialist history of the United States, how Evangelicalism shapes American politics and culture, et cetera, have infiltrated my work. I feel guilty about the privilege of looking away from Nigeria and her quirks and the issues I used to care about. Writing is activism for me. So I find ways to hold on in everything I write.
One way I held on here was by writing partly in Nigerian Pidgin English. It was perhaps the hardest choice to make because I wanted this story to remain accessible to a worldwide audience. Context clues and repetition helped, but I believe I cracked this story wide open when I chose to make one character educated by the British. Even if a reader doesn’t fully understand a line of dialogue, the preceding and latter lines should help. This choice helps with characterization even more, as it provides a clear contrast between the life experiences of these two men.
From its ideation to publication, this story took four years. If I dared advise other writers, my only suggestion would be quite simple: Keep writing. Keep taking that story apart. It will get there.
AYOTOLA TEHINGBOLA (she/her) is a Nigerian-born lawyer, photographer, writer, and translator. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Witness, Washington Square Review, Passages North, Quarterly West, among others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Her manuscript was shortlisted for the 2023 Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize for Debut Novel and she is a three-time recipient of a Glenn Balch Prize for Fiction. She has been supported by the Lagos International Poetry Festival, Hudson Valley Writers Center, GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, Alexa Rose Foundation, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and Kimbilio for Black Fiction.
