By Osa Amadi

The Musician, The Piano Teacher, and The Writer evolved concurrently. But it appears we have marginalized The Writer in this narrative, and that is unfair, because you can see it is The Writer who is doing much of the work here. So before we go to Lagos, indulge me to retrace my narrative steps and fill you in on the evolution of The Writer alongside these other two professionals.

My writing skill is a product of my addiction to books. It is possible that I am more addicted to books, and have read more books in my life, than any other person living today. Presently, my reading bias cuts across non-fictional – history, biographies, the sciences, environment, inspirational and good Christian literatures. But I had begun with fictions, especially James Hadley Chase and Nick Carter. I don’t think there is any James Hadley Chase novel I did not read. Much later, I discovered the richness of African literature – the Heinemann African Writers Series – Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Cyprian Ekwensi, Chukwuemeka Ike, Buchi Emecheta, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Peter Abraham, Ayi Kwei Armah, etc.

Even now, my addiction to books has not abated. My favorite destinations are bookshops, especially the roadside ‘bend down bookshops’ where used books are sold.  With only N100, I have bought quality books so rich in content and worth thousands of naira.

Once I get hold of a good book I do not rest until I am done with it. I have never allowed time to constitute a barrier between me and the devouring of any good book I come across. I sleep with books and wake up with books. On Lagos roads, I am hardly aware of any traffic gridlock because I am always absorbed in the book I am reading, whether it is day or night. I always carry books and flashlight (for night reading) in my bag.

In my house, I have no other useful property apart from books. My wife complains that books have taken over every available space in our house. And each book must be left or returned to where I keep it, otherwise trouble ensues whenever my mind zeroes in on a book for reference when I am writing and I get to where I kept it only to find out it is no longer there.

Long time ago, after I was saturated with reading, I began to yearn to write. I started teaching myself to write by keeping journals after I had read Henry David Thoreau from my father’s Chambers around 1984. At my request, my father had gone to the government press at Owerri and brought a large ream of off-cut papers for me. With the off-cuts, I started keeping daily record of my thoughts and everything that happened around me then with dates. I still have the original manuscripts with me today and I marvel whenever I read them. I see how I have progressed over the years from a clumsy writer to a novelist and a master storyteller. The oldest page of my journals I could lay hands on is dated 31/01/1987 (Saturday). And this is what I wrote (unedited):

EDUCATION

My education is my source of hapiness. While my mates waited to be admitted into the university before they start their higher education, I took to self education. And today I am as good as a university graduate…

Another abstract concept I explored in my journal was ‘Respect’. On 2/02/1987, I wrote:

RESPECT

Be careful in giving respect. A fool’s interpretation of respect given to him is fear. Such respects could instill a feeling of audacity into the fool against the giver. Respect should not be given to fools who don’t know the value.

This is an eternal truth. Thirty one years later, till today, I have had no single experience which disproved that insight. Over the years, I have met a lot of fools who had misinterpreted and spurned the respect I have extended to them. Those people do not deserve to be respected on account of their foolishness. The Bible rightly says that “a rod is for a fool’s back”.

On March 2, 1993  during the prolonged ASUU strike that kept university students at home for a whole academic session, my father died in active service as the Administrator-General, Estates & Trusts, Ministry of Justice, Imo State. Something significant died in me, in my mother, and in my siblings, along with my father. As A.G of Estates & Trusts he had left his estate and money in the bank for the state to administer for his family. It was after my father died that I came to realize that we live in a wicked world. All the people my father helped and made in life left, while we writhed in emotional and financial pains.

Around June 1993, I was seized by a great emotion to write a book based on my experiences at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. I was in my final year and the prolonged ASUU strike was still on. Once I picked up my pen and began to write I became a prisoner to the deluge of inspirations bombarding my mind. Images, characters, dialogues, and sceneries jumped out from nowhere and project themselves onto my consciousness as in motion pictures. Words I had no idea they existed in my vocabulary store popped up from my sub-conscious realm into my brain. I was confined to the spiritual.

For three months (June to August 1993) I wrote from day into night and from night into day with little or no sleep, capturing those images raging in my mind like rampaging ocean waves. It was after I had written the last word in what became BURN AGAIN, my first novel, that I realized I had been in a partial trance for three months. I still marvel till this day each time I read BURN AGAIN. I have never ceased to wonder from whence those words like sculptured images had come from.

When the ASUU strike came to an end I took the raw manuscript to Ife and from Ife I brought it to Lagos in 1994/1995.