Uchechukwu Umezurike

Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, also known as Uche Peter Umez, is a Nigerian author and academic currently working as an assistant professor of English at the University of Calgary. In addition to publishing several works of children’s fiction, short fiction, and poetry, his academic research draws from gender studies and critical race theory to analyze African, African diaspora, postcolonial, and global literatures as well as film. Quotes Thanks, Nzube, I appreciate all the work you do for African literature. It’s inspiring to see a younger generation of Africans building and fostering platforms to promote African literary and cultural productions. Look at what you are doing, the same thing Ukamaka Olisakwe (Isele), Obi-Young Otosirieze (Open Country), Umar Abubakar Sidi and Richard Ali (Konya Shamsrumi), and Kenechi Uzor (Iskanchi) are doing for African writing, and many others. I feel heartened by the reception I’ve received from people who have read Double Wahala, Double Trouble. I’m glad that Bibi Ukonu and his team at Griots Lounge Publishing, Canada agreed to publish it. Double Wahala, Double Trouble is a montage of people’s experiences, stories, and lives, which I happened to crystallise as fiction, something more relatable for me, and I hope, for my readers. I wanted to explore the frequency of trouble in our world, how trouble haunts our being and relationships, the everydayness of trouble as it besets desire, love, intimacy, family, community, and even the nation. Trouble is very much at home with us, it seems. Yet beyond this exploration of trouble, I wanted to understand how people manage to deal with tragedy while attempting to make sense of their world. There were times the writing was fun; other times, it was a struggle, mainly because I had to juggle my academic research, noncreative writing, and other quotidian commitments. But then, you already know, no form of writing comes easy to the writer. You must do the backbreaking work while making sure to take care of yourself. Life happens; it doesn’t slow down just because you are recrafting a scene or revising a draft. In hindsight, I’m glad that I put the collection together. Double Wahala, Double Trouble is out there. What a relief! Many of the stories had lurked in my mind for more years than I can recollect. It must have taken me more than a decade from writing the first story to the last one, which I wrote, I think, sometime in 2017. I finished working on the manuscript in 2018, during the second year of my PhD program, then left the manuscript until sometime in 2019, when I felt I should revise it and send it to an editor. I didn’t look at the manuscript again until 2020 after I’d received significant feedback from my first editor, the amazing Kimmy Beach. When I felt right about the manuscript, I sent it to a few Nigerian publishers. However, while I was waiting for their response, Griots Lounge Publishing, Canada indicated an interest in the manuscript, and then we worked with two wonderful editors, Kara Toews and Tayo ‘Keyede, to get it ready for publication. So, the rest is history. I would say “Neighbours” because it seems, to me, the funniest story in the collection, aside from “Stupid.” “Neighbours” tells the story of a quirky artist and his enchantment with his neighbour’s handsome face. But it is also a story about male violence, deception, and trauma. That also happens to be my wife’s favourite story. I enjoyed writing it. Yes, I remember that interview I had with Sokari Ekine, the founder of Black Looks. I was trying to understand the dimensions of history then, which I’m still doing right now. History not only as time past, an event or a series of events that happened in the past, but also time in the present—the haunting that a past event leaves in the present moment. I’m struck by the pivots of before and now, the dynamic between both. We live in history and cannot escape it. History is perhaps a door with multiple doors. It is never shut but remains open. Who can slam shut the door of history? Moreover, history is here even though it happened then. The present is a history unfolding, interleaving into the past while clearing its own history for the future. For the future citizens, their present is our time past, our present as historical. There is a continuum. A story refuses the fixity of the past. Every story that has been told is of the past, present, and future, so what stories we tell, the stories we share among ourselves, are shaped by our relationship to history and how we perceive the past and anticipate the future, be it in relation or opposition to the present. That is the connection I’ve been trying to figure out; this connection is evident in how I crafted some of my stories in Double Wahala, Double Trouble. The past of colonialism, figured now as neocolonialism, in the politics of Nigeria and the plunder of the oil-rich Niger Delta. The past of Biafra, restless, chafing the core of national harmony. Is the past of Nigeria any more radically different from the present Nigeria, especially if we consider the frequency of deaths and depredations fellow Nigerians live with? So, like you, I am interested in how history contours and informs the present society. Please let’s get something clear here: I don’t think I have been out of Nigeria for a considerably long time. And even if I have, what does it matter and how does it impact my art? Who decides who a Nigerian or African is? What does it mean to be a “real” Nigerian or African writer? Such nativist sentiments. I have lived in at least 20 states in Nigeria, so why should anyone dare to question my Nigerianness or tell me not to write about Nigeria because I now live in Canada? What kind of warped thinking is that? I don’t want to waste precious time indulging in such frivolous conversations, very useless and impotent. Moreover, there are more productive conversations we should be having, such as, how do we get corporate bodies to invest more in literature? How do we get the government to grant annual funding to local publishers and libraries? How do we source for private endowments for literary prizes? I can’t abide censors, who work themselves up trying to decide which Nigerians should write about Nigeria. Let a million stories be told. Let people write from wherever they happen to be. The world is more prosperous for the flowering of stories! I feel great about winning the prize for literary criticism in 2021. It’s nice to have a panel of distinguished jury recognise my writing for its merit. That’s a great feeling, which I don’t intend to take for granted. However, I’m still waiting for the new opportunities the prize supposedly confers on its winner. I suppose the Nigeria Prizes for Literature and Literary Criticism still have a bit of work to do in that respect. For instance, they could create more opportunities for Nigerians to engage the winners of these prizes in discussions, not just organise a book reading party in Lagos. What do they lose if they organised reading tours in some major cities in Nigeria, so people could get a chance to further appreciate literary culture? I hope the Advisory Committee finds a way to broaden its vision of the prizes.