An Interview by Matthew Krajniak
Morowa Yejidé is doing just fine, thank you. The D.C. native has enjoyed enormous success from her relatively recent first novel, Time of the Locust, which was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize, a longlist selection for the PEN/Bingham award, and an NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work. The novel was also applauded by Washington Post critics who proclaimed that the book “deftly brings together the fantastic and the realistic, and … touches on a variety of issues, from politics, race and murder to disability, domestic tragedy and myth.” I caught up with Yejidé to see not only how she’s enjoying all of this praise, but also what her thoughts are on process and “magical” writing. Here’s what she had to say.
ORIGINS
First and foremost, I think many fans of your writing would like to know if you are currently working on a project, and if so, what might it be?
YEJIDÉ
I'm in the last stages of another novel but it is "classified" until it is finished. I like to let things I'm working on stay with me until I'm ready to release it out into the world. After that, it becomes a kind of animal all its own. But I can say that this novel is another magical realism-laced literary fiction trip down the rabbit hole of human behavior. Stay tuned!
ORIGINS
It’s been three years since Time of the Locust, a book that, among other things, brought you critical praise by both being a finalist for the national PEN/Bellwether Prize and longlisted for the PEN/Bingham award. Has this attention changed your approach to writing? What do you now see as your primary motivation to create narratives?
YEJIDÉ
The attention is humbling and I have had some of the most life-changing conversations with people who read Time of the Locust or one of the short stories I've published over the years. When someone tells you they've been moved by your story or they saw themselves in your characters, it is pure delight. Almost an out-of-body experience. But when I'm writing, there's no one there but me and the blank screen. I tend to be very intense when I write and I block everything and everyone out. What people thought about something I wrote or what they might think about what I'm writing now is the furthest thing from my mind. I just look forward to the odyssey of what I end up putting on the page. It's me going out on the open water by myself to see what I find. That said, I do feel that I have a responsibility to create complex characters that represent people in all of their layers of honesty and dishonesty, ugliness and beauty. I need to write narratives that not only look at what happened but why.
ORIGINS
Your writing has been characterized as having “fantastic” or “magical” elements. Would you agree with these characterizations? If not, why? If so, what draws you to this type of content?
YEJIDÉ
I love the magical and fantastic element in writing. I get a thrill at the duality of the mundane next to wildness. I think the contrast heightens both aspects and leaves me an enormous landscape to create and illustrate how characters interact and respond to that landscape. I never tire of creating doors with fantastic elements and having the story go through that door to more discovery of something deeper or hidden.
ORIGINS
Locust has at its forefront a seven-year-old boy who can be considered a savant. With the debate surrounding causes and care of autistic or other special needs children still very much a part of social discourse, what do you see as your role as a fiction writer in these and other social debates? Do fiction writers even have a significant role in this regard?
YEJIDÉ
I think writers have a responsibility to demonstrate what a character can represent— to see that character for who he or she is. In the case of the little boy Sephiri, it was more important to offer a glimpse into what the world of a child like Sephiri could look like it he could tell us or show us. That's where the magic is. Not the autism, but in the possibility of his point of view through the lens of autism. The World of Water was a perfect medium for that since I felt it mirrored a realm that was unhinged and different from the Land of Air (the real world where he finds it difficult to communicate). But more that, I thought it was important to show his childhood. At the end of the day, he's still a kid. I have been fortunate to have interfaced with parents who do have children with autism. After reading the book, they shared many things they related to in the dynamic between Sephiri and his mother — but what really got me was they liked what I imagined his world could look like because it was some of things they imaged too. The story gave them a way to connect.
ORIGINS
Writers often use experiences from their time growing up to shape their stories. What do you think it is about that time and those experiences that make us do this?
YEJIDÉ
I think early experiences can leave a kind of watermark on writers and they may draw from them either consciously or subconsciously. Childhood is a time when the eyes are wide open, when there's no filter, when there is no one editing what you see. So I would think that those sensory experiences settle somewhere and stay. Writers can often tap into that unfiltered "content" and use it in stories.
ORIGINS
Is this use of nascent experiences a practice that consistently informs your work? Do you find yourself more interested in some experiences than others?
YEJIDÉ
I look at the whole world and everything in it as my toolkit when I write. There's a saying, "Never tell a writer anything." I think that's true. I tend to sponge up everything I read, see, or hear. One day it might be something I read in a science article. Another time it might be a conversation overheard on the train. It could be a latent memory of playing with marbles (a motif I used in Time of the Locust). Everything. Anything. I have a fascination with time itself and what happened in various eras, so time is often a character in my stories. It's all like a big tapestry in my mind and I pick and choose what I want to write about based on concepts I want to explore.
ORIGINS
Finally, if you could say anything to young writers, fiction or not, what would it be?
YEJIDÉ
Don't quit. You will be told "no" over and over. It's important to get deeply in touch with your vision for your work and then push tirelessly towards it. No one will believe in your art more than you. No one will care more than you.