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06.11.2014 Feature Article

An Interview With Professor Atukwei Okai

An Interview With Professor Atukwei Okai
06.11.2014 LISTEN

Professor Atukwei Okai is one of Africa's literary giants. He is also the Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers Association [PAWA]. Femi Akomolafe went to interview him at his office in Accra.

PAWA House, Accra, September 25, 2014
1. You are one of Africa's towering literary icons, kindly tell us what sparked your interest in literature.

I was lucky to have grown up in a literary home. My father was a school headmaster in Gambaga in the Northern Region, and he loved books. I grew up and had my formative years in Gambaga from age of three, for eight years. I attended the school where my father was the head. It was a unique school where the five hundred pupils were encouraged to recite the Lord's Prayer in their own languages.

And we all participated in whatever language was chosen. That really fostered a true sense of comradeship among the students. It also made us less clannish, and helped us to develop appreciation for other people's culture. You can imagine the pride I enjoyed when fifty or so years later, I chanted parts of the Lord's Prayer in Yoruba to an amazed audience in Lagos, during the presentation of my poem, “Fanfare for Oduduwa”.

My father was a true Pan-Africanist with friends from all over Africa. I grew up with some Yoruba students in my house, and could speak sentences of Yoruba.

Northern Ghana of those days was a paradise. It was a pristine, natural environment where people led undiluted, natural life. The people got all their needs from nature – from the food they ate, to the drinks, to the clothes they wore, to the materials they used to build their houses. They got everything from their own backyard or their farms. It was for them a life of total self-sufficiency. Nothing was imported.

That, of course, helped shape their philosophy, their music, their dancing and the totality of their culture. They were very natural people and this is reflected in their culture. This texture of their cultural philosophy not only inspired me, but deeply informed the spirit and structure of my poetry.

The Mamprusi people believe in themselves, they believe in theAfrican and they believe in nature to take care of them.

I still remember the colours of the environment, the sonorous songs of the birds, and the graceful agility of the animals. On one occasion the townsfolk succeeded in killing a huge lion that had been terrorizing the community.As the procession of hunters bearing the “palanquined” but vanquished lion got close to our classrooms, all of us pupils jumped over the ledges of our large low windows and ran to join the procession to the chief's courtyard.

Till today, I still chant the melody of the drum music that gave us the clue as to what was afoot! The actual words chanted through the cadences of the drum music began thus:“Tayignaakatiku!”, meaning “We have killed the chief of thieves…!” Such was my immersion in the culture, that at that age of five or six, I understood it. In fact, it wasn't unusual for me to be summoned from class to interpret to and from the Mamprusi language for my father, the headmaster of the Gambaga Native Authority Primary School, a Ga from southern Ghana, when the chiefs, members of the Board of Governors of the school, visited the school.

My school had a great library with many books, this allowed me to read to my heart's content.

That type of environment not only nurtured but also inspired one to be creative. I was lucky and blessed indeed.

2. What was the literary scene in Ghana like in those days?

On returning to Accra, my appetite for reading, already whetted by the books I had read in Gambaga, was fueled by the number of libraries I saw. I invaded the libraries – the British Council Library, the American USIS Library and the Accra Central Library; I was a member of three libraries, in addition to my secondary school library. I wanted to find out as much as possible about poetry. I was relentless.

The literary scene was blossoming in those days; it was vibrant.

I read widely and I wrote prodigiously.
3. Can you remember your first published work?
Yes, I do. Of course my poems had been published in newspapers and magazines and read on radio for years. But my first major volume published was “The Oath the Fontonfrom and Other Poems”, 160 pages, hardcover, by Simon Schuster, in New York, U.S.A. It was in 1971 while I was a student at the University of London.

4. You were a member of the Ghana Society of Writers (precursor to the current Ghana Association of Writers), you even became an official at a very early age. Can you tell us the story?

I became a member at age sixteen, when it was founded in 1957.

The youngest member, I was then at the Accra High School. When I finished school in 1960, to help me earn some income, I assisted the Society's secretary, Miss Cecile Mchardy, who was then the secretary to Commander Jackson, who was in the Akosombo Project. Working out of her office, I was put in charge of the distribution of the maiden issue of the society's literary journal, perhaps the Country's first,TheOkyeame Magazine.

It was quite an exciting time in my life. Imagine as a young boy being surrounded with so many books, and to be in the company of literary giants like Michael Dei- Anang, J.H. KwabenaNketia, Efua Sutherland the late Kofi Awonoor, Efua Sutherland, CrakyeDenteh, Kwesi Brew, GeombeeyiAdali-Mortty, Cameron Duoduand and many others.

What was amazing was their grace and their total lack of pretensions; they went out of their way to help and they served as mentors. A special mentor was the principal of my Accra High school, WilliamConton, author of the novel, “The African”. He introduced me to Mr.MosesDanquah, the Editor of a new magazine that was yet to appear,The Ghanaian magazine. My poems thus began to appear on its pages. At the 1960 Prize giving ceremony of the school, William Conton, to my surprise, had gotten the staff of the school to contribute to purchase for me a special prize, “Shakespeare's Complete Works”, in recognition of my poetic talent. Another kind mentor was Madam Dorothy Padmore, the wife of Mr. George Padmore, whom I visited in their home. Of an evening, I would sit by her under the skies as she critiqued some of my published poems while her husband , Dr. Nkrumah's famous friend and colleague, George Padmore,sat by reading large foreign newspapers.

In June, 1971 I was elected Secretary of the Society, with Mr. CrakyeDenteh, as President. But in December 1971. I had to take up my scholarship to the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow.

5. You went to study in the former Soviet Union, what informed that decision?

On my mission to research and fashion a new kind of poetry that my people would be able to relate to, as I said earlier, I raided the libraries in search insights answers and inspiration. I discovered Russian poetry which answered my needs. But it was in translation. I therefore realised that I need to master the Russian language in order to have access to the original source.

Therefore, when the President, Kwame Nkrumah, came back from his tour of the Eastern Bloc in 1961 and announced that he had secured one thousand scholarships for Ghanaians in various disciplines, I applied for a scholarship to Moscow and was successful.

6. Can you share with us your experience as a student in the Soviet Union?

Literature has always held a place of great pride in Russian history. Russians love books and they adore literary people. The people read voraciously.

There were bookshops everywhere and books were unimaginably affordable. There were literary journals, theatres, concert halls and cinemas all over the cities. In fact the whole creative arts was in full flight. There were countless libraries in town.

The Soviets cultivated not only the sciences and mathematics, but also the arts. Books were plentiful and they were deliberately made very cheap. It was a conscious effort informed by a desire to make everyone have access to books, irrespective of one station in the economic ladder. They believe that money should not be a barrier between man and enlightenment, andthat the development of the individual is the development of the nation. They also see education as good investment.

There were writers' cottages all over the country. There were great publishing houses that churned out books in voluminous quantities. Vast resources were put at the disposal of the artists and the writers so that they could concentrate on their literary creations.

The facilities were owned by the Soviet Writer's Union and was paid for by percentage deducted from every literary material sold in the country. It was a writers' paradise, especially for a young lad like me from Africa. Established authors as well as young ones and celebrated poets came to these writers' cottages to relax, reflect and create.

As a student with published works, (from which percentages had been deducted) I was entitled to free tickets for flights to and from the writers' cottages.

Russian poets write for the Russian people, and what they write about come out of the people's experiences, so the people can easily relate to them.

7. You met some of the greatest writers of the Soviet era, can you tell us some of them. Which of them made the biggest impression on you, and why?

We were introduced to the works of great writers like Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekov, Nikolai Gogol and Mayakovsky. I got to meet giants such as Konstantin Simonov, MikhailSholokhov, PavelAntakolsky, EvgeniyDolmatosky and OlgaBerlgolts. The young but famous writers were AndreiPoperichny, Bella Akhmadulina,YevgeniiYevtlushenko and Andrei Vonessensky, among others. The great writers and artists of the Soviet Union went out of their way to help upcoming youngsters like myself. They came to the GorkyLiteraryInstitute to participate in the symposia and the workshops where they sharedtheir insights, creative philosophies and literary experiences with us the students. We found these most encouraging and inspiring.

They impressed me greatly with the way they relate to the ordinary people, and their great concerns for their people.

Actually, thanks to the several international conferences organized by the Soviet Writer's Union, as well as world famous writers and artists who visited the Soviet Union from all parts of the world, I had the opportunity to meet many of them. If it was not at the Central Writers' House, then it would be at a conference. I met Pablo Neruda of Chile, NazimHikmet, a Turkish poet and dramatist and Allan Sillitoe, author of “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”. I also met in 1964 the legendary African artist from Ethiopia,AfewerkTekle, as well as the Mozambican poet, Marcelino Dos Santos, NgugiWaThiongo, and Okot P'Bitek, all major African writers and poets.

In 1967 the Gorky Literary Institute was honored with a visit from Stanley Kunitz, the US Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He came into our class and I had the privilege of reciting one of my poems for him. We became life-long friends.

In 1962 in Moscow, I ran into Yevgenyii Yevtushenko who confided in me that Robert Frost was in town and that he was lodged at the Sovietskaya Hotel. I rushed there, spoke with the US Embassy officials and was led to visit with Mr. Frost. I presented him with some of my poems. So you can see that it was a golden period to be alive and living in Moscow in those days. You got exposed to and got to meet the greats of the world.

8. You were in the Soviet when Ghana's first coup that overthrew the government of Kwame Nkrumah. You were a beneficiary of a scholarship from that regime, what impact did the coup directly have on you?

Personally for me, it created uncertainty about my future. I was a beneficiary of a scholarship and had gone to acquire the knowledge I thought would enable me to also contribute my quota to nation-building. I had finished my studies and was preparing to go back home in 1967. Then the coup had happened in 1966. My classmates from the Soviet Union were already given their employment letters, and some advised that I seek employment in the Soviet Union, which I could have done. They were very anxious about my going back to a country that had just experienced a military coup.

But I allayed their fears by saying that I was just a student with no political tags whatsoever and I had done nobody any wrong, and that the worst they could do to me was make me starve. I returned to Ghana

9. On returning home, Ghanaians who studied in the Soviet Union were ostracized by the new regime. There were some persecutions. What were your own experiences?

It was a most despondent time of my life. It was indeed a very low period for me. I was already a writer and broadcaster of some note before I went to the Soviet Union. It galled greatly that those of us that went to study in the former Eastern Bloc were tarred by the general suspicion attached to socialism in those days. We were not politicians and we did not get our scholarships on our political affiliations. We were young Ghanaians with passion to help build the country.

I wrote application upon application for employment; in fact about eight. Not a single organization even bothered to reply me. The situation was so scandalous that the late JawaApronti (of blessed memory), wrote an article in the Evening News newspaper, “Can't We Use This Man?”

I finally got called up by the GBC, and went to the interview with several people. I was the only person out of the lot that was denied employment. On enquiry, I was told that the CID had collected my file and had not return it.

10. Despite your qualifications and your huge talent in the arts, you couldn't get a job and had to depend on stipends from your mother. How did you cope with such experiences?

It was tough, very tough. Imagine a highly-qualified person like myself roaming the streets of Accra, while colleagues with whom I had studied, were gainfully employed.

Imagine trekking around the city on your foot in the sun. It was sometimes friends and former colleagues driving their own cars whostopped by to offer you a lift.

And it was not due to anything I had done wrong; just vindictive actions by petty officials.

My situation was dire, and I don't know how I would have survived were it not for the generosity of my mother. And by Grace of God, every morning she gave me two shillings, which was just something to have in the pocket, just in case, as I went from office to office. At one point, I roamed Accra the whole day on empty stomach. It was harrowing.

During this period nevertheless, I honoured invitations to give groundbreaking, mind-liberating and soul – uplifting performances of my poems at certain secondary schools, such as Wesley Girls' High School, and Adisadel College both in Cape Coast as well as Achimota Secondary School.

In the audience at the Wesley Girls High School was my youngest sibling, FaithSharon. In the audience at Adisadel were the former Minister Kwame Peprah, Sir Sam Jonah as well as my younger twin brothers, Ben and Sol, who are now physician-surgeons in the U.S.A.

In the audience at the Achimota School were the late Rev. Dr S.S Quarcoopome who became my colleague at the Institute of African studies, Legonand the current Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, AmbassadorKwesi Quartey. The Achimota performance was organized by the former Ghana High Commission to the U.K and now a member of parliament, Hon. Isaac Osei. The impact of my performances on the youth as testified by them, was simply staggering and lasting.

11. Your passport was seized and you almost lost the chance of a scholarship to a British university, how did you finally resolve it?

That was another funny story that almost cost me a chance to pursue my post graduate course in England.

I had a scholarship for the University of London. But on returning from the Soviet Union, my passport had been seized by the BNI at the Accra Airport and it had not been returned to me. Time was running out for me to leave, lest I lose the scholarship.

I decided on direct confrontation. I went to the police headquarters and demanded to see the IGP. I was ushered into his office. He beamed a smile at me and asked: “How do you do, Mr. Okai?”

I replied: “Sir, I am not fine.” When he asked me why, I told him that because he had travelled, I could not travel.

He asked why and I narrated my ordeal. Lo and behold, right there and then, he pressed a button, summoned an officer and asked him if he knew me. The officer answered, yes sir! And he asked him to go and get my passport for me.

That was how that case was resolved. Just like that!

12. Let us talk on what made you what you are today – your poetry. I must confess that it was your poems that made me change my mind about poetry. The poems we were introduced to during my school days put me off with their hard to understand convoluted languages, and imageries to which I cannot relate intelligently. Reading your poems is like living a real story told by a master story teller. What is the trick?

The trick was that an artist must first question why he wants to become an artist. That is fundamental. Artists are crucial to a people's recollection of themselves. They are the custodians of a people's collective memories.

During my days in the Soviet Union, I invaded the libraries literally and figuratively. My research led me to the discovery that Russian writers and poets are popular with the people because they capture and beautifully express the people's daily experiences.

In the Soviet Union, the poets declaimed their poems.

I thought, hey look, we also do the same in Africa. Our Griots and Praise-singers perform exactly the same roles. Then it clicked

The people are so in love with literature that in the early 1960's about five thousand people in Moscow filled a stadium for four hours, in the freezing cold listening to poetry recited by the hugely popular and revolutionary young poets,Yevgenyii Yevtushenko and Andrei Voznessenky.

The problem was not with the people who do not read, but with the writers that wrote above the heads of the people.

Poetry is a living art; it has to reflect the people's experiences and feelings. Anything else is a waste of time. I decided that if I must do poetry, I must do the poetry that makes sense to the people and use language they can easily grasp. And that I must use imageries to which they can relate.

I am a great admirer of Kwame Nkrumah. I am astounded by the depth of his passion for the continent, and his elaborate vision for Ghana, for Africa.

I admire what he did for Ghana, for Africa. Nkrumah believed that the Blackman was capable of taking care of his own affairs. That lit a fire in me. His belief in the African and the African future was inspiring.

My burning ambition was to do for African literature and for poetry, what the Osagyefo had done for Africa in the realm of politics. I wanted to de-mystify poetry and make it accessible to the common people. I knew it was a monumental task I set for myself but I set my sight on achieving it.

My own father had also awoken my sense of Africanity already by exposing me to the histories of African heroes and heroines. He gave me a book, “Great African Leaders”. I always remember a book on one of the shelves in his library, by a Nigerian called something like MbonuOjike or Njike, entitled, “My Africa”. I'm still looking for that book.

13. You also have a collection of children poems, why the interests in children?

My interest was kindled when my wife, Beatrice, and I went to look for books for our children and we couldn't find any written by a Ghanaian or African for African children. All we saw were foreign books written for children in other climes.

I recognized this is an opportunity and a challenge! I said: You are a writer, do something about the gap. That was how it started and so far, I have published three volumes of verses and chants for children: “The Anthill in the Sea”, “A Slim Queen In A Palanquin” and “A Pawpaw On A Mango Tree”.

Later on, as our daughters grew, Beatrice would teach them the poems and even make songs out of them, which the girls loved to perform. I have five daughter(Kordei,Klorkor,Klorkai,Klortsoo and Fofo) and I'm proud to say that they all grew up on my verses and chants for children, and today they have also started teaching it to their own children. In fact, one particular chant that moves me a lot has a funny history. Our four-year old eldest child, Kordei, was outside the kitchen and all of a sudden, called out to her mother in the kitchen: mama, mama, come and look at a dog that is looking at me! That statement and the dog I also looked at did something to me, and within about half an hour, I had composed the chant, “A Pawpaw On A Mango Tree”.

14. Has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to the Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka?

Not only have I been told several times, but I have also experienced it many times without number. Even in Nigeria, people have mistaken me for Wole.

Another time, I was in Lagos for a function where a book about Wole Soyinka was to be launched, at the end journalists rushed after me, shouting “Professor Soyinka, Professor Soyinka!” shouting all manner of questions.

Some years back, I had an accident and was hospitalized for several months. Wole came to the hospital to see me. One of the nurses who was at the reception rushed to tell me: “Your brother is coming to see you.” When that my brother appeared, it was Wole!Another incident happened at the Eko hotel in Lagos where the manager I was spending some time with the manager, trying to get a reduced room rate. The man said: look my brother, instead of the foreign rate, what I'm offering you is the local rate, just because you so resemble Wole Soyinka.

It happens all the time; Wole and I have good chuckles over them.

He also experienced same in Ghana. He was at an insurance company in Accra when the receptionist welcomed him with, “Hello, Mr.Atukwei”! Soyinka then answered and said: Oh hello! Has he got any benefits here?” He recounted this.

Wole has such wonderful sense of humour about such occurences.

15. You talked of your friendship with Professor Soyinka, is there no professional jealousies between the two of you?

Oh, no! Our friendship goes way back to when I had just finished secondary school in 1960. We are brothers with deep respect and appreciation for each other. In fact, he has been a source of inspiration.

He has hosted me several times in his home and I have honoured him on public platforms.

There was a time I went into exile at Ile-Ife; it was Prof. Wole Soyinka and Prof. KoleOmotosho who put a bungalow at my disposal and ease of my stay there. I recall that our late mother who passed on about five years ago at the age of 101, very often would ask from us to know about the wellbeing of Wole Soyinka. There was so much talk in our house about Soyinka that my mother had grown to know and be fond of him.

16. You are the Secretary- General of the Pan Africa Writers Association (PAWA), can you tell us more about the organisation?

Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA) is the umbrella organisation for all African national writers associations.

The idea was born of the fact that in unity lies true power. On their own, the national associations have little power or influence, but as a continental body, we carry more leverage.

It started around 1985 when we (various national associations) set up an international preparatory committee (IPC), charged to establish PAWA. We then made a tour of African countries and went to the OAU headquarters where we met officials and put our case across. We were advised to attend a meeting of African Ministers of Culture that was to take place that year in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

We went there, addressed the conference of ministers and informed them ofour plans. They gave us enthusiastic support. PAWA was founded in 1989.

Our aims and objectives are to bring African writers together, and fight for the rights and the interests of writers on the African continent.

17. Sadly, the reading habit is dying off in Ghana, Africa, as in many other places, what do you think can be done to revive it?

Yes, it is sad. Reading is crucial,in fact even critical to national development. How do you develop a country without an educated mass of people?

The impressive achievements we see in other societies reflect the investment they have made in education.

The lack of interest in reading needs to be seriously addressed and tackled at the highest levels; a re-education of our minds with regards to the necessity of reading, needs to happen.

It wasn't so in my youth. At that time, there were libraries all over town, and people read ravenously. It was very fashionable to be seen with books and engage your peers in literary debates.

We need to establish libraries and stock them with books so that we can revive the culture of reading in our people.

Government should encourage local publishers to publish more books by providing them with incentives that will make them stay in business. Parents should make sure their children balance the use of technological devices with the reading of books.

Currently English and Math are the only compulsory subjects in our schools, I think Literature should be added, as it is the one subject that truly broadens the mind which enables people to soar beyond their horizons. Literature should be made compulsory and every school must set up a Literary Club.

There simply should be no excuse for not reading because it is directly linked to our recollection and application of our sacred histories. Indeed, it is crucial to our very survival.

18. What advice do you have for those of us with unwritten stories in our skulls?

Read, read and read. Read other people's work to get an idea of how it is done. Then start to write your own story.

As a beginner don't worry too much about structures, plots or such like. Just put to paper the ideas that flow into your head.

First, write the stories in their raw state;then let other writers or the editor guide you into putting them into shape. The practice of this is essential to the process, which becomes a habit; a lifestyle; your blueprint to immortalizing your souls-print's purpose

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