Helon Habila on His Latest Novel, Migration, Politics, Education and Role of Young Africans in Development

What’s the inspiration behind your latest book, Travellers?

Helon Habila: It was inspired by the global migration trend, especially having to do with Africans moving to Europe. So that was the inspiration behind it. I was in Berlin in 2014 and I was meeting a lot of them, a lot of African migrants in Europe. So, I got to start talking to them and interviewing them. So that was what inspired the book. Most of the stories in the book are based on the interviews that I conducted with them. Mostly they’re real stories, with a little tweak here and there, but mostly based on their narratives.

There’s been several conversations around migration globally. What were the most profound moments or experiences for you in writing this book?

Helon Habila: I think the most profound moments were the interviews, to get to talk to these people and to hear their stories one-on-one from their point of view. Stories are very powerful and most of them just wanted to be heard. And I think that’s what pushed me to also write the book because they’ve been treated mostly as statistics; Migrants, the kind of generalized generic name of lumping them all together as African migrants, economic migrants, or illegal migrants, or even invaders. So, all these things. Nobody was seeing them as people, as human beings. Because nobody wanted to listen to their stories. When I sat down with them, I could see their happiness at being seen and being heard. For me, that was the most rewarding, the most powerful moments. I still remember each interview that I conducted with them and how they so eagerly poured out their stories, the reasons why they had to leave home, how they’ve been faring since they left home and things like that.

They say it’s difficult for parents to pick their favourite child even if they have. You’ve written four novels now, which would you pick as your favourite?

Helon Habila: Like you said, it’s hard to say which one. The most diplomatic way is to say my favourite is going to be the next one. But to be honest, maybe the most recent, because it’s the most recent in my mind and the process of writing it was a bit different from all the others. Like I said, it’s based on actual interviews. The others, not so much. Even though with ‘Oil and Water,’ the one about the Niger Delta oil crisis, I had to do a lot of interviews and research for actual, interviewing people, but it was not as rigorously as this one. So I think that’s my favourite. And because of the topicality, the importance of travel in our modern society. There’s almost like a concerted attempt to restrict Africans from traveling, starting from the visa process, the policing of the borders, to the hostility when you get there, to open racism. It’s not a mistake, it’s deliberate. They don’t want Africans to travel.

So, travel has become such a political issue, even if you are legally documented. The issue of undocumented travellers, as well as their reasons for travelling is also something we need to look into. There’s politics, history, and colonialism all the way. So, people have to really pay attention to the idea of travel, using travel as a metric to understand how countries and global power imbalances work. For me, that really is very important.

How does this reflect on African leaders, the fact that we have so many migrants going to other countries, of course, searching for greener pastures? How does that reflect on Africa as a continent and the needs to develop our society as Africans?

Helo Habila: I think it reflects poorly on our leaders. That means the countries are not working. Nobody wants to leave their home country or homeland. That’s one thing. Nobody wants to be an outsider. Forget how much hype there is about the West. Most people wouldn’t last one or two years if they had better options at home. They would just go there for business. I mean, that’s what used to happen in the 1960s, 1970s. Nigerians would go to school and come back home, they never even thought of staying because everything was going well for them here. So that’s what our leaders need to return to.

We need to return to those days when things were working, when democracy was at least practised more equitably than it is now; when people had more guarantee of getting a job, healthcare was much better. Basically, the economy was much better, but not so much. People are running away from insecurity now, the violence, you can just go on listing them. Nothing’s working basically and the leaders don’t even seem to realize what’s happening. I think until we get to that point, people will keep traveling.  And I must say that it’s not just an African phenomenon only, it’s a global phenomenon. when you go to Latin America, when you go to Asia.

Again, we come back to the global imbalance. Why is it that some countries, things are working for them and some parts of the world, the global south, things aren’t working for them? So, we have to think about that… Traveling is always important, it opens your mind, your view, you see the world and you learn a lot… I wouldn’t change it for anything. But at a certain point you, wish you were in your own country. I want to come back, definitely when I can.

How long did it take you to write Prison Stories?

Helon Habila: About a year, and Waiting for An Angel; it’s the same book, there was not much rewrite. I think what I did was just to change a little bit and added one more chapter, that was it.

How would you describe the process before you won your first award (Caine Prize), and what would you tell other young, aspiring writers waiting for that big breakthrough?

Helon Habila: It’s the same with most aspiring writers. You have to invest a lot of your time and mental energy, you have to be focused. It’s not easy. I remember working at Hints magazine, entering competitions and just basically doing what every other aspiring writer was trying to do. Maybe I just had more luck, maybe I had more belief. Like you mentioned about my first book, Prison Stories, I wrote it in long hand, with pen and paper, under the candlelight because we didn’t have electricity where I was staying in Ketu in Lagos at that time. So that shows you the amount of belief and dedication. When I try to tell young people that it’s not just about being famous, being on social media and all that; it’s about you having to put in the work, you have to put in the work, you have to study read all the books by your contemporaries and those before them, and really understand the tradition in which you found yourself. There’s no shortcut to success, that’s all I can say.

Having grown up in northern Nigeria, what would be your advice to the leaders so as to improve the development indices in the region?

Helo Habila: What they should do now is to invest more in education, not just building fancy state universities. They should go back and start developing the primary education, because you find some of these students who end up in universities can’t even read or write. That means the foundation or fundamentals are missing. My suggestion would be for them to really invest in basic education. When you compare countries like Nigeria to India for the past 10 years or even 20 years, there’s been a systematic investment in education at the primary level. Now you see India is reaping the benefit of that. My fear for Nigeria is that this under development of the educational sector is going to be felt, not just now, but in the future; a whole generation might suffer the consequences. They should invest more in primary and secondary education and find a way to make education free at all levels. The leaders should find a way to occupy the youth, set up alternative means of employment, what they are going to do like farming communes for NYSC to invest and work in. We have to find a way of employing the young people and occupy them.

If you get an invitation from a state governor or the governor of your state, Gombe, to do a six-month sabbatical in one of the Nigerian universities and to mentor young people, would you take it?

Helon Habila: Of course, in a heartbeat. I’m a proud Nigerian and I want to give back in the way I can. Definitely.

What’s your advice to young Nigerians and Africans who feel disconnected with the situation in the country?

Helon Habila: They shouldn’t depend too much on the government, even though I keep saying that the government should pay more attention to them… They should be more innovative, go into business for themselves, and don’t really wait for the government to rescue them. They should find a way to express themselves positively.

From what you’ve seen so far, what do you think of the Nigeria’s literary landscape, and the future?

Helon Habila: I think, to be honest, we’re doing quite well. When you compare Nigeria to other African countries, we are, like, miles ahead. Okay. And, again, this is based on the initiative of independent Nigerians who have occupied the vacuum left by the multinational publishers. And Nigerians stepped in, people like Cassava Republic, Farafina, Ouida, and others. We have this preponderance of publishing, because writing is a business. It’s a whole industry. It’s not just about writing, even though we have a preponderance of people just wanting to be writers. I think some should also try to be editors. Some should try to be publishers. Some should try to be critics. It’s a symbiotic thing. It’s a whole ecosystem. So, I think that’s the next step. We have the writers, now we have the publishers. We just need the critics and the marketers and all of that. But there’s been tremendous progress compared to when I first published my book, Prison Stories. I had to self-publish because there was no literally no single publisher at that time who was publishing. If you wanted to publish at that time, you had to self- publish. So that’s the change.

How challenging was that (self-publishing)?

Helon Habila: It was not easy for me to raise the money. You had to get the money and pay them. Then, of course, you didn’t have anyone to distribute it for you. You had to distribute the books yourself. Some of the copies are still there, like 20 years later, I still have them. The writer doesn’t have to carry the burden of promoting himself and marketing his own books. You just need to have that space to write and then others will take over from there, with the marketing and the promoting. That’s why it’s a whole ecosystem.

Epik Books (Nigeria) was the first publisher of your debut collection, Prison Stories, and one of the short stories won the Caine Prize. You later got a publisher in the UK. How was that transition into getting a foreign publisher?

Helon Habila: Epik Books was something we came up with Sam Umukoro. It was kind of to give it a name and just to have an imprint. It was our own imprint. Sam came up with the ISBN and all the things that we needed to do. So, it was just a one-time thing. We did it. I didn’t know of any other books under Epik Books. So, it was just something that we did. It was like a stopgap, a provisional thing. Then, of course, I was lucky to get published, to get picked up, to win the Caine Prize. And then things kind of moved on from there.

As a creative, what role does family play for you?

Helon Habila: Family is everything. They keep you grounded. They make you happy. They also make you angry, sometimes (laughs). But yes, family is everything.

Do they really understand when you want space to, be in your writer’s zone?

Helon Habila: No, not really. You just have to make your own space. You have to take them to see their friends. You have to take them to the mall. Sometimes, you have to insist on your own time. You have to just kind of walk out of the house quietly without telling them where you’re going. With writing, you have to be ruthless with your time. You have to be protective of it.

What would be your biggest advice to aspiring writers?

Helon Habila: My suggestion would be to start writing short stories and getting them out there. It’s not easy. But try to build a portfolio, a body of work. Then from there you can approach agents. Because now you have access to agents, you can just go online and email agents. And there are a lot of competitions that you can send your work to. You really have to test yourself out there. I see a lot of young people here with a kind of sense of entitlement. They’re waiting for the agents to come and get them. I don’t know how they imagine that. But you really have to put yourself out there. You really have to hustle. That’s the only way it works. And you have to believe that you’re as good as anyone out there. You have to believe that you’re as good as the best. Just keep entering the best, the toughest competitions. Keep sending in your work/s; even if you get rejection or you don’t win, just keep putting yourself out there. Eventually it’s going to happen for you.

If you were to pick, what would be your top five books?

Helon Habila: I can just mention the books I’ve read recently. I was just reading The Age of Revolution, by Fareed Zakaria, it’s a non-fiction book, it’s really good, I think everyone should read that. For work of fiction, I love Damon Galgut’s The Promise. It’s a very good book. Recently, I finished teaching Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. And I really enjoyed Teju Cole’s Tremor. It’s a very good book, I would recommend it. One of my favourites also is The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. I’m just reviewing this book by the late Nigerian writer, Biyi Bandele, called Yorùbá Boy Running. I’ve just started reading it and I’m enjoying it. I would definitely recommend that. It’s coming out soon.

You’ve been around the world. What are your favourite cities and why?

Helon Habila: Berlin. I love Berlin. I would also say, Gombe and Abuja. I also love Washington DC. Why do I love these cities? …somewhere you feel at home, where you can negotiate your way without any fear, where you love the food, where you always have friends. It’s all subjective, but if I go to Berlin today, I know where my friends are, I know where I can go and get the best food, I know how to keep myself busy. And they have the arts, museums, they have good libraries, and there’s always some cultural event going on.

When you’re not writing or teaching, what do you do?

Helon Habila: I take walks. I love going for walks. I love going to the movies. I hang out with my kids, go to restaurants. I go to the museum in Washington D.C., there are lots of museums in D.C., like the Smithsonian. So, I love going there.