Isak Interview #13: Weslie Onsando

This interview series features original conversations with folks around the world who are in the thick of literary culture -- the passionate writers, editors, critics, readers, translators, publishers, bloggers, designers, booksellers, poets, performers, journalists, and instructors who are bringing vibrancy and joy to the world of words. More than a rehash of things you have heard familiar names natter on about before, this series will turn its attention beyond the bounds of the usual suspects and the usual issues. This series is committed to a dynamic exploration of ideas, craft, language, literature, and culture with the people who are committing their lives to it. See more interviews here.

 

One of the questions that I wanted to explore here in Kenya was how a literary culture, and a literature, emerges in a young nation. It's a large, twisted, amorphous, fascinating, and altogether complicated question that I hardly has a simple answer. Kwani, where I work, is doing a great deal to cultivate a literary culture of international significance here in Nairobi by publishing East African writers, printing a highly-regarded literary journal, and organizing a whole host of hip literary events. But Kwani is working in a context where the momentum points in a different direction: a scan of any Kenyan bookshop will make it plain that reading in Kenya is associated with school and self-improvement; not joy. It felt like a revelation to me when I learned that in Swahili, the verb for "read" ('-soma') is the same as the word for "learn" and "study."

At one of the writing workshops that I facilitated at iHub in Nairobi, I met Weslie Onsando, a poet and reading enthusiast who works with Storymoja -- another organization and publisher that is agitating for Kenyan literary life. Weslie is a recent graduate of Daystar University, where she studied print and electronic media. She is a bright and engaged young woman who is eager to share her passion for reading; I, in turn, was eager to learn more about her and her work.

In our conversation, which took place over about a week, Weslie and I discuss how she sees herself as part of literary culture, why Kenya has not developed a culture of reading for pleasure, how she's working to cultivate bookish love in Nairobi, why writers have a bigger responsibility than they realize, what's happening with the huge (huge!) live-action read-aloud event she's organizing, and, of course, what she likes to read.

Here is Weslie:

 

 

Tell me about yourself, particularly as a writer and reader. How do you see yourself as a participant in the literary world?

I am an idealist. Or at least I like to think of myself as one. In my head, there is a certain moral standard that I think the world should live up to and even though most people don’t, I like to think that many people do. I think happy thoughts. Even as a reader, I can’t read horrors or thrillers because the world is
messed up enough as it is. I really don’t need fictitious stories to find things to worry about.

I’m a thinker. I weigh everything I say till it’s just so. I practice conversations in my head sometimes. This makes writing for me very arduous because I always think about the effect my work will have on my audience. I’m always going, “But if I say this what will they think? What will they do?” I have lots of inhibitions to overcome before I put a piece of work out. That’s not to say that I’m not daring or controversial; just careful.

My writing is very introspective. As a poet, I like to write about my reactions to the world around me. I feel that this is the only unique contribution I can make to the world. There are poets a dime a dozen, but no one else has gone through exactly what I’ve been through, so no one else can experience the world like I can. One of my favorite quotes about literature is that reading is peeking into someone’s soul and finding your own. As I write, I hope that my readers will see through my eyes and maybe find out something about themselves.

I like books that celebrate culture. All my favorite books have a strong basis in a certain age or cultural setting: Jane Eyre, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Concubine, Sherlock Holmes, The Rice Mother, The Silver Sword (among many others). There’s something so amazing about being able to live a life that’s so different from yours: to experience what it is to be invisible under a hijab or sit atop a pile of mangoes under the Indian sun.

I used to read everything. Nowadays, I’m a lot more careful. Writers have a big responsibility and sometimes I think we get careless. We literally have the power to plant thoughts into people’s minds: to make them think, dream and even obsess about something and lately I see a lot of trash being perpetrated as literature. But there are also some very good books coming out too. It's important for you to filter what you let into your mind.

 

Tell me about Storymoja. What kind of work do they do, and how are you involved?
 

This is what the official Storymoja bio says.

Storymoja is a venture recently formed by a collective of five writers who are committed to publishing contemporary East African writing of world-class standard. We source widely to identify good local writers, help them edit their submissions to exacting standards, and develop eye-catching book-covers. Our books are marketed to a wide Kenyan audience for entertainment rather than as textbook material. This constitutes our unique selling proposition. We want to challenge the perception that Kenyans do not read (other than required educational text) by providing them with the contemporary stories they can identify with and which we believe they are dying to read.

Basically, Storymoja is a publishing house that believes reading is cool (that's our slogan), and they'd like to let the rest of East Africa know. As mentioned above, we publish and sell books, but other than that, there are so many other things that we do to encourage Kenyans to read.

A big one is the Storymoja Hay Festival Kenya. This is an annual three-day international celebration of stories, ideas, writing, and contemporary culture through storytelling, music, books, live discussion forums, demonstrations, workshops, open mic sessions, debates, exhibitions, performances and competitions. The whole place comes abuzz with people excited about learning and ideas. It is organized in collaboration with the Hay Festival (UK). Last year, the festival had over 6000 attendants. This year, it will be held on the 16th to 18th September at the Railway Grounds. It's a really awesome way to spend your weekend. I would recommend it to anyone.

We (also) run a program for kids (and sometimes adults) where they get their own stories published in just 2 ½ hours. As a group, the children develop a story idea, plot, characters, and the setting. The Professional Storymongerer (facilitator) guides the group, as they develop the story up to a climax point. Each person then writes their own personalized endings, with the guidance from the Storymoja Writers. Artists simultaneously design beautiful cover pages, and unique illustrations for inside. The books are then put together and bound to give you a piece of yourself that will last a lifetime.

And these are just some of the projects that we run. We also have writing and performance workshops, storytelling in schools, and competitions that we run on the side. Our biggest project right now is the Kenyan Reading Revolution. This is a three-year campaign aimed at changing Kenyans' attitude towards reading for pleasure. For too long, reading in Kenya has been associated with exams and newspapers. Reading for the sake of reading really isn't encouraged much in schools or at home, and we would like to change that. My boss likes to quote a study done by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that states reading for pleasure has been identified as the most important indicator of the future success of a child. In fact, being enthusiastic about reading and reading often is more of an advantage than having educated parents with good jobs. So, we'd like Kenyans to read more. In order to do this, books need to be easily accessible, and that is the second objective of the campaign: to fill up the Kenya National Library in Buru Buru with books so that more Kenyans will be able to find books when they want to read them.

To launch our spectacular (yes, spectacular) campaign we're planning to break a world record. On 16th June 2011, we're gathering 25,000 Kenyans at the Nyayo Stadium to break the world record for Most People Reading Out Loud in One Place. It's a tall order. The record was originally held by Turkey at 15,444 people but two weeks ago, they broke it again with 22,000 people. So we have our work cut out for us. But with your help and Kenyans countrywide, we should be able to make it.

I work in the special projects department. My official title is Special Projects Assistant. Mainly, I organize the Publish-Your-Own-Book sessions, and now organizing the reading revolution. This means meetings with potential clients, working on new stories for PYOB, visiting schools, and workshops. Working at Storymoja is exciting!

 

Can you tell me more about why you think reading for pleasure hasn't yet caught on in Kenya? Why is it only associated with homework and news?

I honestly don't know why reading hasn't caught on in Kenya. I love to read, all my friends love reading, and yet, I know a guy who's never finished a single book in his life. It's sad.

I think inaccessibility plays a large role, though. Many children don't have access to libraries, and buying books is pretty expensive. Then, if they do have the money for a book, they figure the proper investment
would be one that will help in schoolwork, so they buy supplementary texts.

I once read that Africans tend to value the spoken word a lot more than the written word. That's why we have loads of oral literature, but very few of those stories are actually written down. It's sad. Especially because we imagine that the keepers of our culture are going to last forever, and of course they're not. So we're slowly losing our values, and even if we wanted to get them back we have nowhere to refer to.

Reading for reading's sake just doesn't seem to be all that important in Kenya. I know that lots of times in primary, a teacher would say something like, "Stop wasting your time reading those silly novels when you should be studying; how will they help you?" Fortunately, I'm pretty stubborn, but I know that lots of people have had it drilled into their minds that novels are a waste of time. So they do better things with their time, and miss out on a wealth of knowledge.

So yea, it's something that may have been birthed by distrust of white people and their books -- trying to convert us to be them -- but however it became, it has been perpetuated countrywide so much so that our collective attitude towards books is one of ignorance, or worse still, disdain. I feel bad for my country sometimes.

 

What kind of things do you and your friends like reading?

That's a really hard question to answer. I've been trying to come up with an answer the whole day! I have loads of friends with very eclectic taste. We all pretty much agree that Chimamanda Adichie is an
awesome writer, but other than that I really couldn't break down the sort of stuff we read. It ranges from super-helpful how-to-make-yourself better books, to commercial John Grisham types, to better-get-saved Ellen G White religious books. And then there are the ones that fall through the cracks ...

 

You talked about the huge read-aloud event happening in Kenya at Nyayo Stadium. Who do you expect to show up? And what is the message you are all sending?

Well I have some unfortunate news. The read-aloud event for June 16th has been postponed. We had hoped to inspire and excite children by breaking a Guinness World Record in reading, but we weren't able to raise enough money for transportation of all the 25,000 children in time. So we thought, just because we can't break the World Record just yet, doesn't mean we can't set our own National one. So we are.

On 16th June 2011 Kenyans will set their own National Record for "Most people reading out loud from the same text in different locations." Schools around the country will be holding a special assembly in the morning where all students will read aloud from the same text. Currently, we are working with the British Council through their network of Connecting Classrooms schools (about 20), as well as other schools. We would also like to encourage Kenyans wherever they are to go onto our website, where they can read the story out-loud as well. They can take pictures of themselves, or even recordings, and send them in. We are also happy to partner with any interested school or organization. The story is a really good one, about a street child. This is in honor of the Day of the African Child (16th June), whose focus this year is on street children and how we can help them.

About the message: Research shows that if If you were to read one book per week (average 50 books per year) you would be getting the equivalent of a practical PhD in your field each year. Each year! Here's what we're trying to say: if you want to succeed, read. For every question that is asked, I can bet there is a book that's got the answer, so we need to read. We need to read a lot more than we are now. We need to get our friends reading, and even our country. If we want to solve the problems in this world, we need to read. If we want to make our lives to be better, we need to read. It seems like a tall order with just a few kids and a short assembly, but it's a start; a spark, so to speak. Hopefully it will catch onto something and start a fire. At least we hope so.

Comments

[Jackie Onsando]

Way to go Wesley!! Great interview!

[George Oyuke]

A good read! The reading culture in Kenya is slowly catching on. The pace may be wanting at times but it is truly relentless in its progress.

[Eric Omwanza]

Need I say go go Wesley? Enuff said.. great stuff!

[It's Billa]

:D Wow! Motivating. We really need to get our country out the gutter and I strongly agree books are the only way out. I love what you do and I would like to be a part of your (&Storymoja) initiative once I'm fully set up. We can achieve spread the word through what we do best: Communication. Great interview! Great girl! Great perspective mind!