I also wish to thank Cressida Leyshon at The New Yorker; Pat Strachan, Marie Salter, and Heather Fain, editor, copyeditor, and publicist, respectively, at Little, Brown and Company; Elise Dillsworth at Little, Brown Book Group; and Eileen Pollack, Gerry McIntyre, and Ekaete Ekop, friends and editors at large. Maria Massie, my agent, you are the best out there.
Last, may the Lord bless you, the people of St. Patrick’s Church, Ikot Akpan Eda; St. Paul’s Parish, Ekparakwa; and the Catholic Diocese of Ikot Ekpene, for your love and generosity to me and my family since my childhood. Through your inspiration, I have stories to tell.
Bonus Material!
Say You’re One of Them
Stories by
Uwem Akpan
About the Author
I was born under a palm-wine tree in Ikot Akpan Eda in Ikot Ekpene Diocese in Nigeria. I was inspired to write by the people who sit around my village church to share palm wine after Sunday Mass, by the Bible, and by the humor and endurance of the poor. My grandfather was one of those who brought the Catholic Church to our village. I was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003, and I like to celebrate the sacraments for my fellow villagers. Some of them have no problem stopping me in the road and asking for confession!
I have very fond memories of my childhood in my village, where everybody knows everybody, and all my paternal uncles still live together in one big compound. When I was growing up, my mother told me folktales and got me and my three brothers to read a lot. I became a fiction writer during my seminary days. I wrote at night, when the community computers were free. Computer viruses ate much of my work. Finally, my friend Wes Harris believed in me enough to get me a laptop. This saved me from the despair of losing my stories and made me begin to see God again in the seminary. The stories on that first laptop are the core of Say You’re One of Them. I received my MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006.
I always look forward to visiting my village. No matter how high the bird flies, its legs still face the earth. When I get back to Ikot Akpan Eda, my people and I will celebrate this book in our own way—with lots of tall tales, spontaneous prayers, and palm wine!
Uwem Akpan in Nigeria, as photographed by his brother, Mfon Akpan
Photograph by Mfon Akpan
Photograph by Mfon Akpan
A conversation with the author of
Say You’re One of Them
Uwem Akpan talks with Cressida Leyshon of The New Yorker
Your story “An Ex-mas Feast” is about a family living on the street in Nairobi, Kenya. When did you first start thinking about these characters and the world that they inhabit?
When I went to study theology in Nairobi, in 2000, I was taken by the phenomenon of street kids. I’d never seen anything like it before.… I started talking with the bunch of kids around Adams Arcade, which was near my school. These kids were not very wild, because they still went back to their homes in the slums in the evening. There was one kid, Richard, who was their leader. I started calling him Dick. He had some English, and was very respected by the others. If I wanted to give them money, the whole bunch would ask me to give it to Dick, because they knew he would not cheat them. He would talk with me and ask me about Nigeria. I don’t know how he managed to be so nice, unlike his friends. After the Christmas holiday of 2000, he disappeared. I started asking questions. Some of his friends told me that maybe he had gone to the city to become a real street kid. I really thought I would run into him someday in the city. But I never did. I kept hoping that he would keep his gentleness even in the very wild gangs of the City Centre.
You’re working on a collection of stories about children in various countries in Africa. Can you talk a little about the other stories? Why do you want to write about a number of African countries rather than one or two—for example, Nigeria, where you grew up, or Kenya, where you studied for three years?
I would like to see a book about how children are faring in these endless conflicts in Africa. The world is not looking. I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet. I have had the chance to study and to travel a bit. I really hope I can visit these places and do good research, so that the stories can be truly those of the people I am trying to write about. I want their voices heard, their faces seen.
Do you find it easy to move between the two continents, Africa and America, or does it take time to adjust to life in each place again?
The rhythm of life here is different from that of Nigeria. I really liked the efficiency and accessibility of things here, the educational opportunities. And I was touched by the beauty and tolerance it has taken to fashion America. But, for instance, the thing about old people staying in “homes” away from home blew my mind. As did how little Americans know or want to know about life elsewhere.
It is a great thing to be able to move back and forth. I get to see my friends. There’s also the challenge of remaining faithful to my roots. Now each time I return to Ikot Akpan Eda, my home, I ask my parents and old people a lot of questions. I am more interested in my Annang culture now than I was before I started coming here. I am always interested in listening to old people in my village. Everybody knows everybody, and people tell tall stories. After Mass on Sunday, people sit together outside the church and share fresh palm wine. One of my mother’s cousins used to come around to our home to tell us stories he made up about different people in the village. He seemed to have a license to change any story into what ever he wanted. My granddad, who helped bring Catholicism to my village, became a polygamist at one point and later came back to monogamy. So I have many uncles and aunties. My father and all his brothers live in one big compound. My mother’s place is not far off.
Have you set much of your fiction in the United States?