A typical Nairobi glue-sniffing street urchin, the type that inspired Terry
Glue-sniffing street boys. While it would be stretching it to say that this was Caine Prize winner Olufemi Terry’s lasting image of Kenya, it was , the sight of derelict, dirt encrusted, lawless boys abiding by their own code of honour — from an incident he observed in Westlands, Nairobi — that found its way into the pages of his prize winning story Stick Fighting Days.
“Glue’s supposed to be a happy drug. It warms you, it’s true, it’s a help on cold nights. But it makes me think of blood. ... I hand the bottle back to him, trying not to gag at his stink. His feet are dotted with yellow shit specks.”
Nevertheless, the story, first published in Chimurenga, was anything but a lament on the “wretched” conditions of street boys and more of a depiction of the ethic, code and savvy seen in the everyday life on the street, with characters portrayed with the pizzazz of action heros, almost making you want to join in on the action. The Economist’s literary editor, Fiammetta Rocco, chair of the judging panel (yet another East African connection — she’s third generation Kenyan) described the story as “… ambitious, brave, and hugely imaginative,” presenting “a heroic culture that is Homeric in its scale and conception.” The judging panel lauded the tight cinematic presentation of the story, which “confirms Olufemi Terry as a talent with an enormous future.”
Sierra Leonean by birth, 38-year-old Terry frequently saw the boys during a three-and-a-half year stint in Kenya, from where he also travelled to Uganda, Somalia and Djibouti for work, and recreation. “I went to Kenya to look for a job as I lived with my dad who was then working for ICRAF and ILRI.”
He worked as a freelance writer and editor in his time here with the World Bank and the Economist, in between which he also worked for a peace-building non-governmental organisation — then called Wartorn Societies Project. He also travelled to Uganda with Amref where he was stationed in Gulu, northern Uganda, for a month.
Did this influence his decision to write about street boys or shape his worldview in any way?
“I don’t know if they shaped my worldview. It was the first time I lived in another part of Africa outride West Africa. In a touristy way maybe I liked the Swahili culture, the food and the language. Maybe I’d like to be fluent in Kiswahili one day. But I wouldn’t say it shaped my worldview much.”
But living in Kenya did spark off the first short stories he wrote, he admits. “The first two short stories I wrote were definitely influenced by Kenya.” While he avers that Stick Fighting Days was not set in any country in particular, the streetboys in Westlands, Nairobi, definitely provided inspiration for the glue-sniffing element of the story. “The writing of J.R.R Tolkien was a definite influence too in my formative years,” he says, evident from the main character Raul’s sticks having been named after swords in the Tolkien mythos.
While Terry lived in fairly plush areas — at the ILRI campus in leafy Uthiru, State House Road and Kileleshwa — his pen chose not to settle on the elite side of life but on street urchins. A decision that may lead to him being accused of pandering to the usual “How to Write about Africa” as Binyavanga Wainaina illuminated (“Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the ‘real Africa,’ and you want that on your dust jacket. ...”) However Terry is redeemed by the verve and zing that he gives to the boys’ everyday existence. It is not a look-at-me-poor-me-save-me-now kind of story but rather a this-is-my-life-and-how-I-live-it-and-what-the-hell-are-you-looking-at kind of story.
It’s not surprising, Terry being a world citizen of sorts. He was born in Sierra Leone, grew up in Nigeria, attended high school in England, lived in Cote d’Ivoire and then went to university in the US. After Kenya, he moved to South Africa and then to Germany.
And for those seeking the secrets of the winning touch — what is Terry’s writing philosophy? He thinks for a while and says: “I’m not sure I have one. I’m just curious about stories. I try to write the kind of stories that I want to read.” He plans to publish his first novel, The Sum of all Losses, and begin work on a second one.
While Kenya might want to claim a midas touch on all its visitors and “sons” (US President Barack Obama topping the list), a circumstance heightened by top writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o allegedly missing the Nobel Prize for literature by a whisker, Olufemi’s brush with Kenya is not unique.
Several African writers have transited through Kenya over time, from way back in the 1960s when South Africa’s Ezekiel Mphalele ran the Chemi Chemi creative centre in Bahati in 1963, to Ugandan playwright Robert Serumaga in the ‘70s and Sudanese Taban Lo Liyong among others.
Currently, Nairobi plays host to other writers from across the continent such as Gambia’s Dayo Foster and Ugandans Doreen Baingana and David Kaiza, active in the local literary scene. More stories will be coming out of the region, we can be sure.
