By Madhusree Chatterjee

“As a child, I read British comedies by P.G Wodehouse and wanted to write humour.The novel came before the story. And it had to be something that cannot happen or almost impossible,” the Nigeria-based Commonwealth Writer's Prize winner told IANS in a recent interview in the capital.

Adaobi's book is set in the caperous world of Nigerian email scams. It narrates the story of young educated “unemployed man” Kingsley who turns to Uncle Boniface aka Cash Daddy to help sustain hearth. Cash Daddy is a mastermind of email cash scams and Kingsley realises that “to balance passion for knowledge and hunger for money, one had to give in”.

The book, written in the classical style of British rob-ticklers, also probes the minds of people in Nigeria who are on the other side of the law.

Adaobi, a graduate of Psychology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, made her first money by winning a writing competition at the age of 13. She currently resides in Abuja.

Excerpts from the interview

Q. How did you hone your English language despite the fact that you area native of the remote interior of Nigeria?



A: I was born in Enugu and raised in the village of Umuahia. In my family, my parents spoke English and Igbo- the local tongue. They spoke English because I suspect they did not want to influence my English. I also learnt English in school, along with Igbo. Later, I read African literature in English. It grounded me in the language.

Q. What made you write a novel on the Nigerian email scam?

A: I was 16 at the time and was studying at the University of Ibadan. Once when I went home to Enugu I visited a house from where the envelopes (fake letters of assurances for money) were going out. That was before the emails were sent to prospective “victims”. Every envelope was white and was marked with addresses of people around the world. I asked a lot of questions to a man who was a scammer. He said it did not yield much money. And I wanted to write a story about their lives. Most young authors are writing about contemporary Africa.

Q. How do people in Nigeria treat the email scams?

A: They treat it like a mentally-ill relative or rather the relative who has recently divorced. NO one wants to talk about it though it is there. No one was willing to acknowledge it. Nigerians tend to look down on the phenomenon and laugh about it- but they are always on the defensive.

Q. What prompted humour in a subject as bleak as email sacms?

A: As I wanted to write about email scams – I guess the easiest style to adopt without being too incisive was humour. It came easily. In fact, I wrote so many humorous scenes that the publishers had to slash it. Very few humorous books come out of Africa and the few that I have read have been published from south Africa. Our well-known writers in Africa are not humorous at all. I think anything that I write in future will be humorous.

Q. Are African authors being acknowledged outside?

A. Several authors in Nigeria are self-publishing their books. Nobody knows about them outside Nigeria. The most popular books on Africa have been written by those who have lived outside Africa. The new authors usually spend their own money to publish their books because the publishing units are short of money. Only a handful of publishers – I know of only two- who commission writers. My publishing house, the Cassava Republic, is one of them. Most of the well-known Nigerian writers are on their list. One of my dream is to own a small publishing house that will encourage new Nigerian authors to write.

Q. How did you manage to publish your book- please share it with readers?

A: After writing my book, I scouted for an agent online and roped in one. His name was Daniel Lazar- he was a reputed agent who had also sold Commonwealth winner Marie Heese’s book. Lazar is an amazing man- he is very young, dynamic, accountable and takes care of every problem. Though I had submitted my manuscript to Cassava earlier, I went through Lazar after signing him on. I was the first Nigerian author to manage a deal within Nigeria.

--Indo-Asian News Service