Weekend Magazine: Tell us about your days writing for popular magazine Hints. When did you start?
Toni Kan: I started writing for Hints thanks to a friend of mine called Ralph Bruce who was a course and roommate at the Univeristy of Jos. We became friends the day he read a poem I wrote, which opened with “What dark deeds deviants do in darkness…” I remember that line because he always reminds me of it. Anyway, he had read my scribblings in school and then told Kayode Ajala, who was editor of Hints, that he had a friend who could write.
Shortly after, my parents moved to Lagos as Internally Displaced Persons in the wake of violence and killings following the Reinhard Bonnke riots in Kano.
I visited Lagos soon after on my way to summer school in Scotland and Ralph took me to see Ajala, who gave me an assignment. “Bring me some stories for Hints in 3 days.” But because I was travelling, I went downstairs and wrote the stories then took them back about an hour later.
Ajala was impressed and asked me to come see him when I got back from the UK. I did and he offered me a job. This was in 1992, so I started working as a writer from my 3rd year in the University of Jos. I would go on to write for Hints for about 9 years.
WM: Do you still feel like writing Hints-type material?
Kan: I always feel like writing stories. That’s what I do for a living and it doesn’t matter what genre. In fact, Ankara Press, run by my publisher Bibi Bakare Yusuf, just commissioned six of us, including Sarah Manyika, Ibrahim Adam Abubakar, Binyavanga Wainana and two others to write original 1,000-word romance stories that would be published on February 14 in English and local Nigerian languages. So, yes, I still write romance.
WM: What motivates you to write?
Kan: Life is my biggest inspiration, followed by Lagos, which is my garden of ideas. I would atrophy as a writer if I left Lagos. The city is one huge, seething, cesspit of stories. Like a friend once said, in Lagos, there is story waiting at every corner.
WM: As a writer, what catches your fancy most, prose or poetry?
Kan: Every experience which is then recollected in tranquillity recommends itself to a particular style or genre for interpretation. I may be driving home and chance upon the scene of a robber being burnt alive and the thought would come to me to do an essay or poem or a short story. It is often not a conscious decision to present the experience in a particular way. It often chooses its own style. I guess this is something those of writers who are adept at more than one genre have to deal with. The only genre that has given me issues is Drama. I haven’t been able to tame that beast.
WM: What do you think of Nigerian literature presently?
Kan: It’s in a good place but internet tigers are going to destroy it. The internet is a democratic space but that very democracy will be our bane especially with the growth in the ranks of members of the Mutual Admiration Society. See what happens now: some blogger (because to call them writers is to belittle the very serious work a writer does) posts some drivel and he has friends queuing up to say how it’s the best story ever written. The absence of gate keepers/editors, to serve as moderators between him and his post, is allowing all sorts of nonsense pass for writing. That is my biggest challenge, but in between the cracks you will find some good writers like Dami Ajayi, Ucheoma Onwutuebe, Enajite Efemuaye, Joy Ehinwa and a few others
WM: Who are your favourite Nigerian writers right now, and why?
Kan: Sefi Atta is my favourite Nigerian writer because we are in love with the same woman: Lagos. I hate to make lists, so I will stop here now.
WM: How about literary criticism in Nigeria, do you think it’s as vibrant as it should be?
Kan: Many people who say they are critics wouldn’t know what criticism is if it mugged them in an alley and gave them a black eye. You can’t be a critic if you don’t/haven’t read. You need an understanding and awareness of a tradition and culture in order to be a critic. What most of them do is navel gazing and ‘paddy-paddy’ reviews. I will refer you back to the days of the Post Express Literary series when people like Pius Adesanmi, Akin Adesokan, Ogaga Ifowodo, Maxim Uzoatu, my humble self and a few others produced serious works of critical elegance under Nduka Otiono’s watchful gaze.
WM: Has a review ever influenced you to either read a book or ignore it?
Kan: Many times. And I think it’s the same for many. I was very glad very glad when at a cocktail party in 2007 or 8, a white woman said to me after we had just been introduced: “We read your reviews in True Love and then we buy the books.”
WM: Your book, Nights of the Creaking Bed was an instant critical darling when it came out. What took you so long to publish?
Kan: I had to finish it first. Just kidding (laughter). When I started writing, I had dreams of being published by Jonathan Cape and the rest of them, especially since I started going abroad and mixing with foreign writers quite early, but what did I know? So, when all that didn’t happen, I decided that I wouldn’t self-publish. I would get a proper publisher. That was mainly the reason why it took quite a while but remember that before then I had published two books, When a Dream Lingers Too Long (poetry) and Ballad of Rage (a novella), both of which were shortlisted for ANA and the inaugural NLNG prize, respectively.
WM: What are you currently working on?
Kan: I have two works coming soon. The Carnivorous City, a novel about yes, you guessed right, Lagos and a short story collection, Infidelity. I am working on the third draft of the novel now which was shortlisted for the Kwani Manuscript Prize two years ago.
WM: There’s a big shift to digital books. Which do you prefer, hard copy or e-books?
Kan: I prefer hard copy, all the time. I like flipping pages and I like dog-earing pages.
WM: You have 3 children. How many of them love to read?
Kan: They both love to read and write and my son does cartoons and the third is a little over a year old.
WM: What’s your favourite way to relax?
Kan: I love to watch movies a lot and I listen to music, especially when I am driving myself. It calms me and stops me from getting road rage.
