Entrevista Chris Abani FM: First question, ahm you know, this is the first book Ive read

from your work, but Ive made some research and I know that yourve written other things so, how would you say this book relates to the rest of your work? CA: Ahm, I think its so Ive published recently so lets say since 2004 four books that make up a quartet. So the first one was Graceland, which is about a Nigerian Elvis impersonator, but inside that book was the story of a girl who was very badly abused, called Effwa, and also a young boy soldier called Innocent. So Effwa became the book called Becoming Abigail and Innocent became Song for night. And then Elvis becomes the virgin of flames in The Virgin of Flames, so they are all connected but theyre all about how does one come to conscience and how does one finds redemption from the darkest places, and how can we heal and how can we continue and how is it possible that even in the midst of the most difficult things theres always love. So this book I think close that cycle of those asking that questions. FM: This novel is about a teenager whos been through war and surviving and those kind of circumstances, but language is a main topic. Why is so? CA: Well because this is the belief of my culture: that the world exists within culture, the material world is made of the language we speak, it doesnt exist outside of language. So we believe that everything that exists in the material world is a reflection of a thing that exists in an immaterial world, and the bridge between these two places is language. And because the character speaks in igbo, which is the language of this culture, necessarily is all about how the language is what transforms, because the very language forces that on the narrative. FM: As an African writer, you know, in Western culture not a lot of African literature is known, but as an African writer what do you think your culture brings to your work? CA: Well, my culture brings everything: the language alone is a product of my culture My philoso phy, my worldview, my religion, all of this influenced my work. Even when I was a catholic, I mean the way that Catholicism is practiced in west Africa is different from Rome So everything I am is essentially a product of a culture, but then I have multiple cultures: I grew up Igbo, but I had a white English mother, and my television influences were bollywood movies, American television, Mexican telenovelas, Australian t.v. so in many ways my culture is a cosmopolitan modern culture, so all of that is brought to --- in the work I make. FM: what would you say are the main ideas that run all over your work? CA: The main ideas that run all over my work is again this idea that language is the ultimate reality, that we can all find a home in language, and that it is possible for language to change the world we live in. Is a complete faith in the idea that African writers are the ---- of humanity of African people, strongly you find that my work says that we all share common humanity, so we are all human in the same ways, we all fail in the same ways, we all succeed in the same ways, and we all want the same things The only thing that separates all as human beings is the spices we use to cook, because spices are the only thing thats specific to a particular place. FM: Thats right! CA: Yeah!

FM: Thats a beautiful idea. CA: Yeah. FM: And after youve been through very hard circumstances yourself I find that your central character is still a proof that you have faith in humankind. How is so? CA: Well, je, I think when you see the worst that people are capable of simoultaneously theres the greatest things and I so spent some time in --- prisons for my work, and I was not put in special prison, I was put in a general prison with really bad people and those bad people did many good things for me, I am alive today because of a lot of those bad people, so I come to learn that bad people often do good things and good people often do very bad things, and so Ive come to value how difficult it is to be good, and I think th at is what every human being --- and regardless of what you may see you may think, most people often end up doing bad things because theyre trying to do good things: to feed their families, to have a better life. So its very hard to me to make those kinds of judgements, I believe only in the idea of grace: that some of us are lucky that we have a grace that is beyond us that redeems us. FM: Ok, the last two questions, but the hardest. The first: what does literature mean to you? CA: Literature for me means, its basically the repository of all the humanity, of all the mankind in time. Its what human memories contained, its what human desire contained, and its mitigated without the pressure of what we call facts. So that it allows us almost as a meditation to get to a deeper truth and that deeper truth often contradicts the very thing we are looking at, but thats the more important thing. So thats what literature is, I think it becomes an expression of the deepest human ideals that are possible. Even literature we dont take seriously, like romance novels, because most romance novels tells us they are a reflection of a society that tell us how men are supposed to react and how women are supposed to react to men, so literature is in many ways the embodiement of all the human experience. FM: Finally, why do you write? CA: I write because I can not not write, but I also write because I am a very bad musician. My first love has always been music, I think side by side literature and music, and if I was really good as a musician I would not be writing because the language of music transcends, theres no need for translation, it speaks to the people or it doesnt and I think theres something I think very pure about that , but I wish I could find that so. All of my literature is an attempt to make music, to make a language that is pure enough that even when it does get translated into multiple languages, it carries that purity, I dont mean purity in a good way, but in a way that is almost like a mirror that allows you to see what you want to see, so that is why I write and because nothing else have ever held my attention, I published my first novel when I was 16, now I am 44, Ive been doing this since I was a child, what else am I going to do, aside of making burguers?