Where do you consider home and why?
South Africa. It’s where I lived all of my life, until this year. Feeling like you are part of the soil and watching that world evolve and shift over time.
List three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of home.
Warm. Family. But then the gut-punch of July 2021.
Have you ever been homesick? Tell us the circumstances and how it felt.
Yes. A few times, but more so at the moment because this is an indefinite move to the UK to focus on writing. It means not being certain of when I will see my family again. Past trips have always had an end date to look forward to and reuniting. This is a big unknown.
What is your opinion about brain-drain?
Yes, more support needs to be in place for skilled people and investment in that knowledge, in order to retain them, but these things happen. They have always happened at certain moments in time. Migration. People come and go. I have left my home but there is no negative reason surrounding it, other than the opportunity pulling me to the UK. So, returning is always an option. That feels liberating as well.
In what way does your physical location impact your creative output?
Unless it is distracting, it doesn’t. Particularly with my writing, I am able to write anywhere. Restrictions in living arrangements and access to art supplies means my physical art has taken a backseat for the past while. It is an interesting situation to rely on my writing fully, while looking at digital (on a laptop) means of expression in design and illustration. And a drawing pad gives a small outlet. And on the other hand, my surroundings do filter into my work, the environment, the people and the cultures.
What is your preferred mode of travel and why?
Car. If it’s my own it means independence, free movement and spontaneity.
In her debut collection of poems Home Coming, Sonia Sanchez’s writes:
“i have returned \\ leaving behind me \\ all those hide and \\ seek faces peeling\\ with freudian dreams.”
What does the phrase “freudian dreams” mean to you?
Everything has a meaning and purpose.
The mission to establish a colony of humans on Mars is becoming a realistic proposition. Would you agree to be one of the founding members?
Nope. I’m good with this blue planet. Starting over again in the UK is enough of an adventure—for now.
This is the 10th anniversary of Ake Arts and Book Festival. If you have attended this festival before, please tell us what was special about your experience. If you have never attended, what are your expectations?
Though I have never attended the festival, Aké Review was gracious enough to publish my second ever short story, Veiled, in the 2016 ‘Beneath This Skin’ edition. This had a huge impact on me as a writer, giving me support and acknowledgement just when I was finding my feet and my voice. It instilled in me a sense of support on the Continent, and drives me in doing my part to find new writers and support, in turn ,the writing community where I can.
What does Africa need right now?
More writers being published, across all genres—the infrastructure to support and nurture the talent we know we have out there.