On Writing Women and Being a Feminist — A dialogue with Sefi Atta.
The story was initially published for Africa in Dialogue in 2017
Sefi Atta was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1964 and currently divides her time between the United States, England, and Nigeria. She is the author of Everything Good Will Come, Swallow, News From Home, A Bit of Difference and Sefi Atta: Selected Plays. Atta has received several literary awards, including the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and her stage plays have been performed and published internationally. Her forthcoming novels are titled The Bead Collector and Made in Nigeria. Her latest short story is “Unsuitable Ties.”
This conversation took place across Abuja, Mississippi, and New York over email.

Ashley Okwuosa: I guess I want to start by asking what’s the most memorable thing a reader has told you about their experience reading Everything Good Will Come?
Sefi Atta: I had two particularly memorable responses. One was from a friend who said the voice of my protagonist, Enitan, reminded her so much of mine, she threw the book down. She had always dismissed my feminist views, but I hadn’t realized how hostile she was to them. The second was from another friend who is a biracial Nigerian. She said that practically every biracial Nigerian girl she knew had suffered a sexual assault, as Sheri did in the novel. That really shocked me.
Ashley Okwuosa: How do you feel about Everything Good Will Come after all these years? How do you feel about how it has been received, interpreted, misunderstood (if at all)?
How do you feel about what kind of expectations it set for you as a writer (if any) and how do you deal with that?
Sefi Atta: Honestly, I don’t think about the novel much. I can barely remember what I wrote in it. I’ve been working on my fourth and fifth novels The Bead Collector and Made in Nigeria. I’m proud of Everything Good, though.
My only regret is that I didn’t choose the title; my editor did. I had doubts even as I agreed with her suggestion. Then I emailed her shortly afterward to ask if I could change it but she said it was too late.
Nigerian readers have always loved the title and they greet me with it. They appreciate the novel now, but when it was first published, in 2005, I was surprised that so many of them considered it controversial. They were upset that Enitan left her husband, Niyi. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t separate me from her, though perhaps it was because I wrote in the first person.
All in all, I’ve had a lot of support from Nigerian readers, despite their disappointment with the ending. Within the Nigerian literary community, however, I’ve had one or two detractors. I’m not talking about academics who write serious constructive reviews; I’m referring to literary goons who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time disparaging writers. Since I had come from an accounting background, it was my first encounter with them. If they were not engaged in ethnic rivalries, they were quarreling over some other issue.
It’s hard to put me in a camp. I’m from a Moslem-Christian family. I’m Yoruba and Igbirra. I write about Yoruba women because I was raised by one, yet my name is not Yoruba. I’m quite comfortable with the contradictions in my biography, but if you are a prejudiced Nigerian, you might have a crisis over my identity. Furthermore, Everything Good was set in elitist Ikoyi, so some of them saw me in that light, even though I’d lived overseas from the age of 23. Now, every time I write about Ikoyi, they assume I’m writing about myself. I dealt with it by walking away from the crowd. It’s how I handle unnecessary conflict.
Ashley Okwuosa: When talking about Everything Good Will Come in an interview you said that you “don’t think you will write the girl/woman against patriarchy story again, at least not in the same way.” In Swallow and A Bit Of Difference, I think you are writing the girl/woman story, but in a different way. And in many ways, you are addressing patriarchy, but in a different way, also.
In the interview, you were responding to an observation about women writers continuously writing “the girl story” and writing about “patriarchy.” The reviewer made that observation and somehow likened it to an archetype for women writers. How do you feel about that as a woman writer that writes female characters?
I emphasize the term woman writer and female characters not to say that’s all you write about, but to say that I think writing about women is important and necessary, period. No matter what story you’re telling. Your stories show complex female characters simply being and I think that’s important because it shows them living in a society that isn’t always set up to allow them to do that on their own terms.
Sefi Atta: What is most important is to write well, and that involves creating complex characters, male or female. You are right that I tell the same story over and over but approach it in different ways. Everything Good resembles a memoir. It is very linear. It even has dates: 1970, 1985, and so on.
Swallow is set on mainland Lagos and in a town outside the city. It has two narrators, a mother, and daughter, neither of whom speaks English as a first language. I deliberately simplified my language and told their stories in a circular fashion, so at the end of the novel, you return to the beginning.
With A Bit of Difference, I come back to Ikoyi, but my narrative is not burdened by politics and I write in the third person; readers may not notice because I stay close to the point of view of my protagonist, who is often reticent and introspective.
With my next novel, The Bead Collector, I’m in Ikoyi again and concerned with politics. The novel is a conversation between two women, except this time I have only one narrator, a Nigerian woman, who is speaking to an American woman.
Ashley Okwuosa: There’s an essay by Carol Hanisch that says for women, “personal problems are political problems.” Enitan’s problems and the problem the other female characters in the book face are personal but very political — did you set out to write this kind of book? A book that emphasizes the politics in the personal?
Sefi Atta: No. I simply set out to tell a story. Enitan just happened to share some of my feminist views.
Ashley Okwuosa: In an interview, you mentioned that you “do not mind shrugging off labels like feminist writer if they limit you.” That was in 2011, how do feel about being called a feminist writer in 2017?
Sefi Atta: It’s a marketing classification; feminism is exploitatively commodified these days. I’m a feminist but I don’t always write feminist stories. I’m not going to hop on the bandwagon because it’s now fashionable and might help me to sell a book.
Ashley Okwuosa: What does feminism mean to you?
Sefi Atta: I’m glad you asked this question because my position has been misconstrued, which is partly my fault. Everyone who knows me knows I’ve been making feminist statements in private for years, but I’m reluctant to accept praise for contributing to feminism because I don’t think I have earned it yet.
Feminism is activism that arises from the principle that girls and women should not be treated adversely simply because we are female. It applies to anyone from a veteran Hollywood actress who wants pay parity with her male co-stars to a Chibok girl who wants to attend school. My position is to be inclusive but to give priority where it is due. So, for instance, I sympathize with working women in Nigeria who have to deal with sexual harassment, but high maternal mortality rates there concern me more. My position is to ask first and foremost that Nigerian women treat each other well and fairly in a system of patriarchy. We don’t always do so and we have to take responsibility for that. My position goes beyond gender issues because I have other identities. I’m a black woman in America, so I can’t separate feminism from racism. In Nigeria, which is extremely divided economically, I can’t separate it from classism.
My husband’s grandmother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who is regarded as Nigeria’s foremost feminist, didn’t fight for suffrage rights for women alone; she fought for universal suffrage. She didn’t stand up for women who were as educated and privileged as she was; she stood up for a market women’s union. She is not called a feminist because she advertised herself as one; she deserves the description because of her service to women and the country. There are lessons to learn from her. Nowadays, I hear about young Nigerian women holding feminist forums sponsored by banks and other corporations. Dialogue is a step forward, but they must address the fact that the institutions that fund their forums disregard the majority of Nigerian women. They must acknowledge that they belong to an exclusive class that does the same; otherwise, they are complicit.
The final point I’d like to make is that my position has evolved over the years. In my thirties, I explored sexual freedom and alternatives to marriage and motherhood in Everything Good. Now, I take a position I believe is better suited to Nigerian women in this day and age. It warns us about sexual recklessness, which can be dangerous to us. It encourages sex education for our safety. It doesn’t view motherhood as an impediment to our livelihoods. It advocates feasible strategies by which we can advance our careers if we choose to be wives and mothers. I find it problematic that Nigerian women are remaining single for longer and giving birth later in life. I find the high divorce rates troubling. I touch upon all this in my recent works, but I don’t necessarily express my views; I just write about the complex lives of Nigerian women.
Ashley Okwuosa: Who is your favorite female character, that you have written and that you have read?
Sefi Atta: Since I have to mention one of each, it would be Remi Lawal, my protagonist in The Bead Collector, and Grace Paley’s Faith Darwin. I enjoy reading and writing about female characters who are ahead of their time.
Ashley Okwuosa: Your parents seem like fascinating individuals. I found a picture of your mother with Malcolm X on your Facebook page and JP Clark once said that your father had “a heart for the arts” how did they (and your childhood) influence your writing?
Sefi Atta: My parents are responsible for my love of arts and culture. My father encouraged us to read. He bought us literary classics. My mother bought fine art. I remember her taking me to Buraimoh’s studio to look at a bead painting she had commissioned. She has portraits of herself painted by Ben Enwonwu and Erhabor Emokpae. It’s astonishing how sophisticated she was when she was much younger than I am. I live in sweats and flip flops.
I’m a huge fan of old-school hip-hop. I set my dining table once a year and wouldn’t know the first thing about how to organize a cocktail party. The Nigerian parents I knew back then were just more cultured, perhaps because of the combination of their traditional and colonial upbringings. Now, parents are more casual and we try to be cool rather than sophisticated, which could be the result of globalization.
Ashley Okwuosa: Your writing is very intimate. You write so beautifully about the small things and sharply about people. You’ve talked about having a “mind bank of details.” When creating a character or describing a scene, how do you know when to pull from that bank?
Sefi Atta: It happens intuitively. Remi Lawal in The Bead Collector is a woman of my mother’s age, so I’ve given her my mother’s taste in music. She listens to singers like Paul Robeson, Leontyne Price, Mahalia Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. My mother-in-law and her sister once told me that when they were young, they would wake up to Judy Garland singing “Good Morning” from a Rediffusion box in the window of a Lebanese trader who lived on their street in Lagos. I used that, too. The trick is to know what details to leave out.
Ashley Okwuosa: In the three novels of yours that I’ve read, your protagonists are female. What is it about writing female characters that you enjoy and what do you set out to do with these characters when you decide to tell their stories?
Sefi Atta: I understand female characters better. Once I know what their motivations are, I basically follow them around and record their thoughts, observations and actions. I also enjoy writing from the perspectives of male characters, though. It frees me. In Made in Nigeria, which is my longest novel, I have a male protagonist who is somewhat sexist. I can get away with creating a sexist character because I’m a woman. No one would assume that I share his views.
Ashley Okwuosa: Lagos is an important part of your stories. It’s more than a location and almost a character in its own right, what does Lagos bring to your stories? Also, I see old Lagos and new Lagos in your work, by that I mean the Lagos you grew up in and the Lagos you know now, how do you feel about Lagos now? You’ve mentioned that you come back to Lagos often. In what ways has Lagos changed for you and in what ways has it remained the same?
Sefi Atta: I have been called a Lagos writer because of my preoccupation with the city, but I have also set stories in London and Mississippi, where I spend some of my time; Made in Nigeria is set in New Jersey and Mississippi. I understand the people of Lagos fairly well because I study them. I particularly understand the people of Ikoyi, where I grew up. But this is the Ikoyi of the 70s to 90s I’m talking about. When I lived there, every family was separated by one degree only. Now, it’s probably three or four degrees of separation, which may not seem like much, but it’s changed the character of the place. It’s still the same Ikoyi, though, in the sense that it is inhabited by the one percent.
Ashley Okwuosa: I’m sure you have stories coming in and out of your head on the regular, how do you know when a story is here to stay — become a novel, short story, play?
Sefi Atta: I don’t. I just make a decision to keep going in the form I’ve instinctively chosen until I finish my first draft, after which I put my trust in the revision process until I feel my work is sufficiently polished. Quite often I revisit stories I’ve shelved. I suppose if I forget an idea for good, then it can’t have been that important, but I have no shortage of them. It’s frustrating really.
Ashley Okwuosa: If you could say one thing to young readers, women especially, discovering Everything Good Will Come for the first time at this particular moment, what would you say?
Sefi Atta: I wrote it before feminism became fashionable in Nigeria. It takes breasts to do that.
Ashley Okwuosa: Do your characters exist outside of your stories? I’m sure you have people come up to you and ask you questions about your characters — decisions they would make, how things ended in their lives and etc. Do you think about your characters or do you interact with them in any way after the story is finished?
Sefi Atta: No. I have to let them go for the sake of my sanity. It can be quite painful to separate from characters in short stories and plays, but when I’ve finished a novel, I’m glad to see the backs of my characters. I’ve generally had enough of them.
Ashley Okwuosa: Is there a particular story that you haven’t written or read anywhere else that you would really like to write?
Sefi Atta: I have too many to mention. I decided not to write another novel after The Bead Collector and Made in Nigeria because novels take so long to develop, and you never know if they will work or not. I’ve been revising these two for about eight years now. The good news is that they are about the precarious state of being Nigerian at home and overseas, so what I have to say is still relevant. But from now on, I will write only plays and short stories, to keep up with my ideas, and I will give up on an idea if I want to. I’ve been writing full time for 20 years now and I’ve said most of what I want to say, which is why I started writing in the first place. I enjoy working so much I don’t take time off to enjoy life. Now, I’m ready to enjoy life more.
Ashley Okwuosa: What was the last book you read and really enjoyed?
Sefi Atta: America, Their America by J. P. Clark. If you haven’t read it yet, you have to. It’s an account of his experience as a Parvin Fellow at Princeton in the early 60s. He spends his whole time challenging American ideas and culture and claims he doesn’t know why his hosts are upset with him, even after they ask him to leave the program. Reviewers have called it an angry book, but I find it refreshingly honest.
