N O V I O L E T B U L A WA Y O & D A V I D P A L U M B O - L I U
failure of leadership, and I was interested in how this affects what happens when a country starts unraveling, and what happens to its most vulnerable citizens. I have to mention that engaging like this means I’m also desperately interested in how we can move forward of course, as most are. I write because I care. You said you first intended to attend law school. What changed your mind? Do you see anything that you hoped to do as a lawyer seeping into your writing? Or do you see those two things as totally separate? I did intend to study law, yes, but that was mostly a result of coming from a background where you’re expected to pursue sensible and practical things, and if you told people, at least at the time I came of age, that you were studying “law,” “engineering,” “medicine,” et cetera, then you were a person-person you know, whereas “writer” or “artist” would be a waste of time. Of course it’s perfectly understandable for families to push their kids toward “real,” “tangible” careers, but that unfortunately always means traditional fields; the arts can just be another distant country for those who cannot afford the luxury. I sometimes see the same dynamic play out with the many young people who come through my classes, the agonizing over what to do, what they love versus what is practical and what not, what the parents expect, and of course I just wish them the courage to sort it all out. It’s not always easy, like most life decisions. Anyway, I suppose what changed my mind, or should I say, what opened my eyes, was finding myself on the page after taking classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan (I can’t
speak highly enough of that school) and understanding that writing was what I was meant to be doing, which then shaped the 12 or so years between taking my first creative writing class, and the publication of my debut novel. My law aspirations at 18, 19 were vague, I was still in the process of figuring myself out, but as an artist I’m interested in literature as a social project that allows for imagining ethics-driven representations and interrogations of the world, that allows us to talk about and around rights, wrongs, problems, issues of justice, et cetera. I imagine this is where my powerless and marginalized characters, normally children and women, as well as my socially engaged themes, come from. There are some notable moments in your novel where you note the naïveté of Western aid workers. You do not doubt their good intentions, it seems, but still you see a gap in understanding. Was your novel at least in part motivated by a desire to correct some notions people in the West have about Africa? What kinds of misconceptions do you feel it’s most important to address? The misconceptions about Africa are numerous, but I believe a better way to think about the issue is to perhaps consider why they exist in the first place — from cultural arrogance to problematic media representations to lack of information et cetera. And quickly, I’ll note that as an educator I’m quite surprised by how much Africa seems to be missing from the formative Western Curriculum, so that it’s possible for a student to get to college and complete it without encountering Africa in any meaningful and balanced way. And as we all know, uninformed young people 221
