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Zaynab Alkali

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Zaynab Alkali was born into the Tura-Mazila family in the 1950s. She is a Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. She is the first female novelist from Northern Nigeria. She attended Queen Elizabeth Secondary School, Ilorin.

Quotes

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  • It is well to dream... as long as we live, we shall continue to dream. But it is also important to remember that like babies dreams are conceived but not all dreams are born alive. Some are aborted. Others are stillborn.
  • Education opens doors and gives an individual option in life.
    • Zaynab Alkali in her book "The Descendants" page 13-14.[2]
  • I am saddened by the fact that most women, especially in my part of the country, are trained from childhood to regard themselves as intellectually weak and incapable of attaining the highest peak in intellectual development.
    • In an interview with Edozie Udeze of The Nation.[3]
  • When I read a book, I look out for the message the author is trying to pass across to the reader. Does the work contain wisdom? Have I learnt anything from it? I also look out for entertainment. Have I been sufficiently entertained?
    • Speaking in an interview with The Nation. [4]
  • If you want to be a good writer, write what you deeply feel you should write, not what you feel the audience will like.
    • Zaynab Alkali in an interview with Kabafest Office.[5]
  • The hope that somewhere, somehow, someone may have benefitted from my ideas makes me feel I have made my little contribution to humanity. In addition to that, the national and international recognition is simply great
    • Zaynab Alkali in an interview with Daily Trust. [6]
  • I would say that life demands that we do not give up, no matter how hard it looks. I have lived by the simple code contained in almost all religions, believe in God and do good works. (Remember God does not leave anybody behind).
    • Zaynab Alkali in an interview with Daily Trust. [7]
  • Hard work runs through my blood. It does not kill, but laziness does. If I were to write about myself I would have hundreds of titles, maybe a title for every page.
    • Zaynab Alkali in an interview with Daily Trust. [8]
  • She knew education is the master key to opportunities for a better life. Education opens doors and gives an individual option in life.
  • My stories are triggered by drama of life.
  • The general attitude of our society towards the female, commonly regarded as the “weaker” sex. I am saddened by the fact that most women, especially in my part of the country, are trained from childhood to regard themselves as intellectually weak and incapable of attaining the highest peak in intellectual development.
  • My inability to express myself well in spoken words. Perhaps this too may have been part of my training, not to be outspoken. I find spoken words unreliable, because once the words are out in the open, it is impossible to retrieve and edit them. I, therefore, discovered early in life, that writing is my best medium of self expression and a valuable tool of communication. This started with letter writing and graduated into fiction writing. In my days, letter writing was a beautiful form of communication. Courtship was elegantly done by the exchange of letters.
  • Fiction writing, for me, is also triggered by the drama of life I witness on daily basis. I find human nature an interesting study. Human relationships, especially romantic ones, are intriguing and highly fascinating.
  • I should mention also that besides all these, I was born into a long line of artists from my maternal side, musicians, dancers, drummers and story tellers. My major genre is prose fiction, (the novel), followed by short stories.
  • When I read a book, I look out for the message the author is trying to pass across to the reader. Does the work contain wisdom? Have I learnt anything from it? I also look out for entertainment. Have I been sufficiently entertained? I believe strongly that apart from imparting knowledge to the reader, a writer should entertain the reader, because reading should be a joyous experience.
  • In the mid-eighties, I was “discovered” by Prof. Stuart Brown, a Briton, and an English lecturer at the Bayero University, Kano. He had come across an excerpt of a story I was attempting to write. He was highly impressed by what he had read and quickly assured me that I was a writer in the making. Not only did he encourage me to write, he exposed my work to the international literary scene, and made it possible for the first edition of “The Stillborn” to be published by Longman Harlow U.K.
  • I cannot, now, remember any particular book that had triggered the ‘muse’ in me, but I can remember some of my best novels; Arrow of God, by Chinua Achebe, The River Between, by Ngugi wa Thiongo and Woman at Point Zero, by Nawal el Saadawi.
  • The character of Ezeulu, the chief priest in Arrow of God, by Chinua Achebe is one of my favourite characters.
  • Writing is my key to self expression. It has been my life line. Not only have I found satisfaction, I have been able to grow intellectually and emotionally through the art of writing. The hope that someone, somewhere, and somehow may benefit from my work makes me feel I have made some contribution to humanity. This feeling is simply great!
  • I do not have a special time, or place for reading or writing. Whenever and wherever I feel the urge to write, I write, using my small note book to capture passing ideas from within me, and scenes from the outside.
  • Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Nawal el Saadawi are some of my favourite authors. There are quite a number of Western authors, too numerous to mention here. I, however, identify with these three great African writers, because they have deep understanding of human psychology and pay attention to details. They accept that human beings are what they are, and behave according to the circumstances they find themselves in; no judgement.
  • I already met one of my favourite authors, Prof. Chinua Achebe in December of 1986. I had no question to ask him, I simply listened to his advice, when I narrated to him an incident that required me to take a decision. “Zaynab,’’ he said, ‘’ don’t let anybody tell you what to do.
  • Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien was the book I read last. The book reflects a world moving toward a certain direction, powered by both good and evil. It is a story of an entire universe in serious conflict and impending danger. The story says, this is also your world and you are not alone in it. It is just that we may not be conscious of the presence of the “others.”
  • I have no immediate plan to read a new book because I am seriously engaged in writing someone else’s story.
  • My library is next door to my home office for easy access, and it is arranged in an order of priority.
  • I am a reader, as well as a writer. I read whenever I have the opportunity to do so, and as often as I can. My slogan for reading is, ‘’read a book a week.’’ You see, no matter how small the book you pick every week is, you will be sure to cover a lot of ground in reading by the end of a year.
  • Writing in Nigeria is not a job, because it never pays.
  • I research a lot depending on the subject-matter. The subject matter informs the nature of settings to be used in the story; historic, physical, socio-economic and political environments, also referred to as Time and Place/Space. For example if the setting is to be a hospital scene, my research will be to observe how the entire hospital management functions, and how medical and other technical staff operates.
  • Ideas come from a lot of sources, experiences of friends, colleagues, neighbors, self and even strangers. However, my greatest source of gathering ideas is from listening to people talk about themselves, or about others, especially at public gatherings, weddings, naming ceremonies, funerals and the market place. A lot of ideas are also gathered at home among family members. The secret is to be a good listener, not talker.
  • For me, there’s no special atmosphere for writing. Whenever I feel the urge, (known in literature as ‘inspiration’) I write, using my small note book to capture scenes from the outside and passing ideas from my mind.
  • My major genre is the prose fiction, followed by short stories, and the central theme has always been about female empowerment. I am intrigued by mysteries, Sci-fi and detective books. As for children’s books, as I get older, I now realize the importance of writing for children.
  • The time-factor. I often wish there are more hours in a day. When a writer is holding, rather tightly, to a demanding job, such as teaching, raising a family and fulfilling certain social obligations, writing can easily take a backbench.
  • Unknown to many, there are some good female writers in Northern Nigeria, but they are not easily known because they write in Hausa language. For a wider audience, I have advocated for translations, for years, at various forums, at home and abroad.
  • The hope that somewhere, somehow, someone may have benefitted from my ideas makes me feel I have made my little contribution to humanity. In addition to that, the national and international recognition is simply great.
  • Writing in Nigeria is not a job at all, because a job pays. Writing at home does not. I certainly cannot remember the last time I heard from my publishers. Between the publishers and the book pirates a creative writer in Nigeria will have to have a better reason for writing. For me, writing is therapeutic. I find emotional and psychological healings in it. The act of writing has always been my life-line.
  • I would say that life demands that we do not give up, no matter how hard it looks. I have lived by the simple code contained in almost all religions, Believe in God and do good works. (Remember God does not leave anybody behind.)
  • I believe in the English saying that ‘No one ever kicks a dead dog’. I must be doing something worth talking about. Criticism, negative, or positive serves as a platform for my intellectual growth. In time, the ‘Mazauni gonin rawa’ will come to realize that strength and weakness have nothing to do with gender, they are personality traits. Society simply assigned weakness for women, perhaps based on physic.
  • I teach, interact with students on daily basis, and supervise their theses. I create time for family members. I do not set a daily writing goal. It does not work for me that way. I realized also that I needed to be sober to write convincingly. I cannot write when I am excessively happy. Some days are simply blank. Often I would write when travelling, or at night when sleep escapes.
  • Simple question, but difficult answer. At the age of eight, I literally held a hoe in my hands. Two plots of land were carved out for me from my mother’s land, one for okra, the other for groundnuts. I helped my mother pay my school fees. Many people would find this hard to believe. I am still holding a hoe, (in a sense). Hard work runs through my blood. It does not kill, but laziness does. If I were to write about myself I would have hundreds of titles, maybe a title for every page.
  • A little bit of me is in every book I have written. Consciously, or unconsciously, an artist gives away a piece of the ‘self’. It is widely believed that a good piece of creative work is an extension of the artist.
  • By the Grace of Almighty God, I want to believe that I have been able to touch the lives of people, not only through writing, but in other simple ways, and I intend to do that for as long as I live.
  • Recommending any one of my books would depend on the target audience. For young adults, ‘The Stillborn’, for the teens, ‘The Virtuous Woman’, for a variety of readers, ‘From The Housewife’, to the university undergraduate to the footloose, ‘Cobwebs and Other Stories’, for those interested in family values, ‘The Descendants’ and for the symbolist, ‘The Initiates’.
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