In his memorable coming-of-age debut The Liquid Eye of a Moon, Uchenna Awoke delivers a poignant story of a young Nigerian man trying to make a name for himself. Awoke puts tradition under a microscope and blends in modern issues as main character Dimkpa takes his future into his own hands.
I caught up with Uchenna Awoke via email to get the behind-the-scenes story of what inspires him, how The Liquid Eye of a Moon came to be, and how to overcome the challenges of writing.
I heard in a recent interview that you are a self-taught writer. Can you tell readers a little bit about how you developed as a writer?
Even though I have always loved stories and been fascinated by the power of words, my endless hunger for reading triggered the passion to write. My small community didn’t have digital technology in the nineties. We didn’t have social media or cell phones. Some of us didn’t even have a family TV. But we had books. We had Chinua Achebe’s novels. He was to many of us “The Father of Nigerian Literature.” We had Elechi Amadi and Cyprian Ekwensi and others. We had Pacesetter Novels, a collection of over a hundred works of popular fiction by African authors, so well-crafted that after reading them I was challenged to write compelling stories with suspenseful plots, too.
Are there any writers who are beacons to you that you look at for inspiration?
I am given to writing that’s language driven. Prose that’s immersive and alive. I was at once drawn to Chinua Achebe’s unique blend of language and narrative techniques. Helon Habila, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, V.S. Naipaul, Chigozie Obioma are some of the writers that inspire me with their profoundness, vivid character portrayals, and the sense of rhythm and flow in their prose.
Was The Liquid Eye of a Moon your first attempt at a novel? If so, why was this story the one you wanted to tell?
I chose to tell this story because it explores a part of Nigerian tradition not often examined in literature. Before The Liquid Eye of a Moon, I trashed a full manuscript. I was at the revision level in the manuscript, and, suddenly, I was dissatisfied and eager to discontinue it. I got rid of the manuscript and started a new one that grew to become The Liquid Eye of a Moon. I was content with the story when I finished writing it because I thought it embodied those craft elements that make a story work. Most importantly, it breaks the silence surrounding a hidden and contemporary system of human tabooing. I think I understand now why some writers talk about the ritual of burning manuscripts, years of hard work reduced to ashes, smoke spiraling and finding new beginnings. Now I believe more in that ritualism.
The caste system is a particularly strong anchor for the story. How did you go about portraying it? Did you think about having to explain it in depth to readers unfamiliar with it or did you choose to only share the basics and let the heart of the system speak to readers?
All I did was narrate the story of a boy whose family is part of the discriminated group. Everything the reader needs to know about ohu ma or human tabooing is revealed to them as they read through Dimkpa’s story.
Did you pull from any real-life experiences and stories you heard growing up?
The Liquid Eye of a Moon is based on real-life experiences, though spiced with imaginary events and characters here and there. The story is live wired by empathy and community. I was inspired to write the novel by acts of discrimination and oppression happening around me. I woke up every morning with people who groaned under the stigma. I had friends who couldn’t visit me because they were tabooed.
How did you integrate superstition and traditional folklore with modern cultural and societal issues to create an authentic depiction of Nigerian culture? Did you face any challenges?
Fiction writing is very challenging. It requires research and brainstorming. I relied more on primary sources for information. I conducted interviews. I also read books and articles sourced from online databases. Of course, storytelling engages the writer’s imaginative power and his ability to integrate fact and fiction to produce a compelling story. Growing up, my mother told me stories of my father’s (God bless their souls) genius. My father symbolized the dazzling spirit whose metallic costume of bright buttons catches mirror reflections, whose face is defined by horizontal linear radiations of white thread, and whose motions are marked by a poetry of body movements. I also heard stories of a place where humans and ethereal entities interacted between the spiritual and living worlds, and, if you bent backwards and looked in between your straddled legs, you could identify ghosts walking on air alongside humans walking on the ground. So, when I sat down to write The Liquid Eye of a Moon, I found myself thinking through stories like that.
I always like to end with asking about books or authors you’re currently reading. What have you read lately that you absolutely love?
I recently read An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma, a stunning novel that highlights the Igbo traditional cosmology. I also just finished reading Ocean Vuong’s poetic novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I didn’t realize a room could blink until I read that beautiful book in it, but it was only a bird that flew past the window. I enjoyed the story so much. I cherish novels written with such lush lyricism and an incredible manipulation of words.