Napoleon Esemudje, a Chevening Scholar, is a poet, accomplished story teller, playwright, essayist, banker, management and human resources aficionado – all rolled into one.
His flair for writing manifested quite early, when he was barely 10 years old.
Today, that aptitude has blossomed into a book, ‘Streets & Corridors, The Untamed Narrative,’ which he says offers an “insightful glimpse into the world of struggles, aspirations, unease and fears.”
In this interview with TheNiche Senior Correspondent ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, Mr. Esemudje said he wrote the book to give voice to the voiceless who constitute a considerable segment of our population.
You are the author of the book ‘Streets & Corridors, The Untamed Narrative.’ What is it about? What motivated you into writing the book?
I wanted to tell the stories or what I have chosen to call the narratives of the many struggling men and women in our society.
They live, walk and work amongst us – in our streets and the corridors of our homes, offices, churches, schools, hospitals and markets.
We, and by that, I mean the more successful amongst our social classes, see them all the time but we really do not see beyond their physical presence. We notice them but we know little about the intricacies of their existence – their inspiration, struggles, fears and pains. Like shadows on the floor, they are the animate equivalent of the furniture and fittings, trees and shrubs, which surround us. They are there but also obscure, and almost invisible to our thoughts.
We see them but we really do not think about them. I wrote this book to give voices to this considerable segment of our population and to capture in a sort of literary testimony, my visual records of their lives.
What is your background?
Well, where should we focus on? My social, educational or professional background? Let me try and capture all three in a nutshell.
I was born in Warri, in the oil boom hey days of the 70s to an average middle class family. I had my major tertiary education at the University of Ibadan, the University of Lagos and later, at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, courtesy of a magnanimous and mind transforming Chevening Scholarship. I have spent the bulk of my professional career in the corporate world, mostly banking and subsequently as a management and human resources professional.
My writing background, however, dates back to my early childhood. I believe I wrote my first story before I was ten years old. Now, I know this may sound like the usual cliché but I truly believe I was born to write. Writing is one of my simple pleasures and also the outlet for my emotions.
It is actually therapeutic and I write to decompress as much as I write to express opinions, thoughts and insights often at the sudden spur of inspired moments, including in the middle of the night. My wife has had to contend with this and all my many jotting notebooks and little pieces of written notes in our bedroom (laughs).
But it has been very fulfilling for me. I am also fortunate and enjoy being able to write across several literary genres from prose to poetry, to essays, short stories and novels. However, due to the intense demands of my corporate duties, it took me a while to formally put together my written works for publishing.
This book “Streets & Corridors” is thus one out of several books written and, I should add, to be written.
What do you intend to achieve and who are your audience?
I believe that every writer uses his or her writings to share and send a message about a subject of interest.
The message may be (a), direct and blunt or (b), like a work of abstract art, left to the interpretation of the reader or (c), descriptive, entertaining yet thought provoking.
My fictional writing, as in this book, seeks or tends to be more of the latter. I want my readers to read, pause and ponder. To reimagine the lives of the fictional characters they are reading about such that the next time they see for instance, a street vendor or hawker, they are a little less dismissive or hasty in their judgement or conclusions. I have also tried to share a message about cause and effect or choice and consequences, not just at the level of the individual but also at the communal and national levels.
Like many people, I worry particularly about our country and its future. Aside the heady days of my preteen childhood, it seems our country has been subjected to a virulent form of the punishment suffered by King Sisyphus in Greek mythology, to perpetually roll a huge rock up the hill only for the rock to roll down every time requiring the painful roll up process to start all over again.
In fact, we may not even be as lucky as the bizarrely unfortunate King Sisyphus because how the repeated pains of disappointment, the defeat of hope and the victory of cynicism and disillusionment, ultimately impacts our body polity may be more toxic. I once summed this up to a different audience as the vicious cycle of perpetual failures, because the more governments fails, the more cynical citizens become and the more they turn away from government to their own self-help devices. The more this happens, the more government is deprived of the country’s best talents and citizens’ goodwill and the more government fails, until the entire system collapses under the weight of its own failures.
Even though this is a message that has been shared by others many times before in much more direct and urgent commentary, I am hoping that as people across our varied social classes read this book, we would see the need to change course both at the individual and societal levels. Because I truly believe that everyone can make a difference within his or her social space no matter how small.
When and how do you intend to launch the book or have you launched it already?
I had planned to hold a formal book launch and autograph event but I have had to suspend the idea in the wake of Covid-19. I have not completely ruled this out though and will reconsider as the pandemic situation improves.
Editor’s Note: TheNiche will start publishing excerpts from the book, starting tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19. Keep a date!