I was at a writers’ meeting, convened by the ANA, Kaduna Chapter in Kaduna just recently and one of the most interesting discussions that day was about how Pidgin has to be taken seriously by Nigerian writers. This arose after a beautiful poem written in Pidgin English, yes, a poem in Pidgin English, by Christopher Chris was read. I left feeling more and more encouraged to be one among those first writers that are treading into the unknown to bring more interesting thrillers of Nigerian origin to Nigerian readers.
But what really inspired this post was an opinion that genre fiction is an escape from reality. I beg to differ. I agree with the weaknesses of genre fiction, but I strongly disagree with it being a form of escape from reality. And it’s not only in genre fiction; weaknesses are in every form of writing be it literary fiction. I think saying that genre fiction is an escape from reality is being unfair to a lot of authors and their works. While not confining any writer to a particular category of storytelling, I think every writer is at liberty to explore, experiment too, and find what bests “rocks his muse” (Ikhide Ikeloa said this to me) and I have found it to be one of the most catching advices I have received as a writer.
Let’s look at this: some artists do pop, some do rock, some rap, some do jazz, some do classic…but they all do one serious thing: they all do MUSIC that appeals to different categories of music lovers. And what do we all writers of creative sort do irrespective of the form of writing? We tell STORIES. We are STORYTELLERS. The basic work of a writer is to tell a GOOD story. Just a DAMN GOOD STORY. And I don’t think there is a strict form of doing this.
I have resisted so much temptation to put literary fiction and genre fiction side by side. I still would, because I am more interested in writing, and, of course, promoting the kind of what I write.
What I think had seriously been overlooked is the thin line that exists between literary and genre fiction. I think we refer to the books that can be taught as literature texts in schools and those that fit for pleasure and entertainment. After this inconclusive assessment, we then draw a wide, a very big, wide line of disparity. Talking about the thin line between genre fiction and literary fiction, here is the difficulty in telling what it really is. Juan Manuel de Prada’s fantastic novel The Tempest, translated to English by Paul Antill is a good example. This is a book that could hardly be differentiated between mystery/police procedural (genre fiction) and literary fiction.
There are a lot of stories to tell, and frankly, guys, they can’t all fit in a single form.
So by the time I’d be tempted to put literary fiction in the same basket with soul music and genre fiction with party music, I’d be reducing a lot of good, serious, engaging, captivating writing to a mere form of temporal superficial enjoyment than the deep penetration, something catching the inner of the bone, which literary fiction have been hailed to provide.
Being a better writer with much appealing stuff to offer to the reader, I think, is the key. I am writing what “rocks my muse”, and doing it in the most fantastic way possible.
Keep watching out for my debut novel, folks.
It is coming!
