The fourth installment of this interview series looks into the intricacies of writing from a complex multilingual background for a global audience. Multi-award nominated writer and editor Oghenechovwe Ekpeki from Lagos, Nigeria, was generous enough to talk to me. His stories like “O2 Arena” visit a futuristic Nigeria, and his anthologies highlight the work African and African diaspora writers.
SH: Please tell me about your multilingual background. How did you end up writing for the anglophone world?
OE: The very way in which I think about multilingualism is different from how it’s normally meant, in cases where someone speaks the language they are born with and learns others. I speak two languages, none of which I can really call my own. My native language is Urhobo, as a member of the Urhobo tribe. Nigeria was colonized long before I was born and its culture altered in ways that made it impossible for things to return to the way they were before. The Urhobo tribe is one of several hundreds in the country, with about five hundred languages spoken. English is thus the official language of the “unified” tribes. In a country of a couple hundred million people, broken into a couple hundred fractions of languages and dialects. The only way we communicate in the official settings that require interaction with the diverse groups is in English, the language of the colonizer which we were forced to speak. So while I was born an Urhobo speaker, I was not allowed to speak it by a culture and situation of colonialism we found ourselves in. Barely 3 million people speak the Urhobo language and spread out in Africa’s most populous nation. So it was impossible to claim or hone my skills in a language I had to stop speaking everytime I left the home.