Lola Shoneyin: A life blind to obstacles

Lola Shoneyin: A life blind to obstacles

by Betty Kankam-Boadu

Lola Shoneyin is a woman who wears many hats from author, cook to the founder of art and literary festivals, Shoneyin is blind to obstacles. She speaks to Inspiring Open’s Betty Kankam-Boadu on how it all began.

Nigerian writer Lola Shoneyin has a résumé that is the envy of many. An accomplished author, poet and publisher, her works have travelled far and near and continue to shine a light on African creators.

Ironically, Shoneyin didn’t even know she was special while growing up. She knew she could write really well, but she thought everyone else could too. She didn’t know it was a special skill.

“I thought writing was something everyone did. I didn’t think it was particularly special,” she revealed on the Inspiring Open podcast. “So, I was always writing, always recording always doing diary entries. And because I was somewhat melancholic, writing, again, was just another means of escapism for me.”

Today, Shoneyin devotes her time to promoting literacy, creating reading spaces, and organising cultural and arts-focused events. Her books of poems include, ‘So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg’ (1997), ‘Song of a Riverbird’ (2002) and ‘For the Love of Flight’ (2010).

She is also the author of three children’s books: Mayowa and the Masquerades (2010), Do As You are Told, Baji (2019) and Iyaji, the Housegirl (2020).

“I’m so grateful, extremely grateful that my life has been a life of words, has been a life of access to writing, to books, which gave me escapism when I was young,” says Shoneyin.

Speaking about her childhood brings both good and bad memories to the award-winning author. “Looking back on my childhood, I think it was one of extreme happiness and joy, but also at times one of extreme pain and sadness and humiliation,” she divulges.

Opening up further, Shoneyin said although she grew up in a family where raucous laughter was very much a part of their lives, she encountered some traumatising moments too. Abuse usually scars the victim and Shoneyin recalls being sexually abused at the tender age of three. 

“I was sexually abused. When I was three years old, I think it’s like it is for most people, it’s something that you carry around for the rest of your life, especially when you have reached the point when you know how to forgive yourself,” she said. 

“Which sounds strange, but sometimes that is the most important element of being able to overcome the very negative emotions and the very self-destructive feelings that one gets over the years. And the way that one punishes oneself for having been exposed to that at an age where it shouldn’t have happened at all.”

These were dark times but Shoneyin has managed to channel her emotions, as well as her experiences and that of others into her works. It’s why she doesn’t fear upsetting the status quo. For an author with strong convictions, she has written extensively on several controversial topics, including homosexuality, polygamy and religion/Christianity.

Just like many writers, Shoneyin’s passion for putting life into words was evident from day one. A student of literature at the university, she was every lecturer’s favourite and enjoyed good relationships with scholars like Mabel Segun, Professor Femi Osofisan, Odia Ofeimun, Harry Garuba, Ogaga Ifowodo and Remi Raji. 

That association meant she was in the right environment to develop her talent more. And so when she found herself working with a literary journal called Glendora Review after school, she wasn’t overwhelmed at all.

Then a 23-year-old, Shoneyin’s career as a poet and writer took off and within no time she was competing against experienced writers for the Association of Nigerian Authors National Prize, where she made the top-three shortlist. 

“I think the two other shortlisted authors, Remi Raji and Gucci, O’Toole Yuka, I think they couldn’t be less than maybe 15 years older than me,” Shoneyin recalls. “I was just 22/23 at the time, and I had these much older men and I didn’t win the prize, but it was wonderful. It was a real boost. It was a real confidence booster for a young girl. And it made me even more fearless. But more than that, it helped me realise that I could do it. And I just never looked back.”

Indeed, Shoneyin never looked back. Her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, has been making waves since it was published about a decade ago. Before that, though, she had written two other novels which never got published because she couldn’t find a publisher.

‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ has become her most influential piece of work yet. The novel was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011. It also won the PEN Oakland 2011 Josephine Miles Literary Award and the Ken Saro Wiwa Prose Prize. Even better, it was announced in 2020 that the book would be a Netflix production.

“I think it’s an important story. A very important story for Africa. And I think Jessica could sense that,” Shoneyin said of her popular book. 

“The fact that that story needed to be written at all is just testament to how there’re lots of people, especially on the African continent, who are still pondering over if there’s such a thing as male infertility, for instance. As you know, it’s often always the woman’s fault. That’s what is generally believed. And I think this book, Baba Segi, pokes a bit of a hole in that.”

Shoneyin also aims to promote women’s voices with her works and is the founder of Book Buzz Foundation, organisers of the Ake Arts and Book Festival. The festival brings together hundreds of African creatives each year, and is currently one of the most important literary festivals on the continent. She also runs Ouida Books, a publishing house and one of the most vibrant bookstores for eclectic readers in Nigeria. 

“Aké the festival came about simply as me, one, being slightly embarrassed that we didn’t have a festival of that magnitude in black Africa,” she explained. “And secondly, because the more I moved around talking about my own book, the more I realised the importance, and how precious it is for writers to be able to come together.”

In addition to all the above, Shoneyin coordinates the Right to Write project, which seeks to introduce children in Northern Nigeria to as many books as possible. Shoneyin is a colossus in the writing space and as a tireless creator, she is evidence that talent makes a successful career when nurtured properly.

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About Inspiring Open

Inspiring Open is a podcast series from Wiki Loves Woman – a project of Wiki in Africa. It is available across multiple platforms under a free licence (CC BY SA). The series is free to access and free to share, redistribute, reuse, and remix.

Inspiring Open was funded through the International Relief Fund for Organisations in Culture and Education 2021, an initiative of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut and other partners. And an annual grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.