Eloghosa Osunde
In Conversation
We sent Eloghosa Osunde a list of questions to mark the paperback publication of Vagabonds! and we were completely blown away by the responses. Read, enjoy, and let us know what you think.
Questions by Nancy Adimora.
NA: We’d love to know where it all started - when would you say the writing seed was planted?
EO: “And the word became flesh.”
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”
I was raised by a storyteller/writer/student who also deeply loved God. She read so much she flooded her shelves. There were books everywhere — a galaxy of extras spilling out from under her bed. She studied the Bible, taught it to us, and showed us what to say over our heads: for protection, for mercy, for grace, for expansion. I watched words come out of her mouth — as prayer, as declarations — and gain tangible form. It changed what words were for me. To me, words are spiritual portals/vehicles and they achieve a very specific purpose if you know how to wield them well. To say, the seed began for me quite early.
I think I first put pen to paper as a seven year old. Then I burnt it. I burnt and waterlogged a lot of my earliest writing. Knowing the weight of words also meant I didn’t find the play inside them until much later. You have to be careful what you declare or put down; this is something I learned by calling miracles and seeing them materialise in my life. When I started writing again at fourteen, in Chemistry class, I mostly stuck to poetry. I stayed writing prose poems for years, sharing a blog with a community of writers. It was honestly electrifying. I’ve been building my way to what I am for a long time; I just didn’t fully see it, yet.
NA: On your website, you describe yourself as a ‘multidisciplinary maker’ - I absolutely love that. Could you break that down for us? What does this mean in practice?
EO: There’s nothing I can’t make with the force of my intention and some time. I say that not as an affirmation, but as a tested fact. When I touch a medium, I’m not just creating work to fill the existing container; I’m also recreating the container itself, also reshaping the form. For instance, I didn’t know a novel could sound like Vagabonds! until I made a novel sound like that.
People often refer to the fact that I’ve worked on many different things, but I haven’t even scratched the surface of the work I’m going to make in this lifetime. Sometimes I work on a book, some paintings, a monologue, a show, a film; consult for a fashion brand, curate music for a space, work on spatial design for a project — all in the same year. I’ve never studied any of the arts in an academic setting, but I’m not in any way confused about what I’m building, ever; because the real origin of all my work isn’t actually what I’ve studied, it’s the clarity of/in/around my spirit. When I touch film, visual art, poetry, fiction, theatre, fashion, architecture, the same thread runs solid. The engine behind it all is me and how I pull intangible things onto this plane through specific communication between my work, my spirit and my God.
NA: A lot of times we’re waiting for permission to fully express our creativity. When did you realise you could build a life around your art, and more specifically, when did writing become something you could actively pursue?
EO: In 2015, I got to be in a room of twenty three writers. There was something about being in that space, and finding people within it who were dogged in their ambition. Before I met them, I wrote consistently without even knowing I’d be able to do it professionally right out of uni. I was on a path to being a management consultant, my eye fixed on the world bank, and more than fine with that. A writer was one of the things I’d always been, and knowing writing loved me back was enough for me. Then during the workshop, I discovered a) how I, in particular, write stories b) that there’s nothing else like it, and c) a path I could follow toward becoming a published author. That, for me, changed everything. I still smell smoke from the life I left behind in order to choose this one; but I haven’t turned around since. Nothing there means more to me than this.
NA: Your debut novel was released last year and the reviews were incredible. The beauty of storytelling is that people can read the same book and walk away with completely different conclusions about what it’s about - in your words, how would you describe Vagabonds!?
EO: A whirlwind wearing a gentle, colorful container. A spirit and a sustainable spell. A blazing testimony of grace and communal courage. A rebellion. A Holy Book.
NA: How did the story come to you? Did you have a broad theme in mind or did the characters come first?
EO: You know — I’m currently discovering that as far as process goes, the title of a book I’m working on really clicks things in place for me. I’d been doing some research into Nigeria’s constitution when I found the word Vagabond there for the first time. Something shifted in me when I saw it used in that context, so I wrote it down with the exclamation, in an existing doc. Shortly after, an instructor of mine died. It jolted me because we’d had conversations about freedom, queerness and the importance of telling true stories — even when they cost something; especially then — over cigarettes and beer while he was alive. He gave an assignment once: to outline a book we’d like to write. I made one that day. But the outline was pretty skeletal when I wrote it, so after finishing that assignment and hearing his feedback, I set it aside for my future self. I thought it’d be a pretty simple collection, and would probably end up being my third book or something. I’d already concluded that my debut needed to be more striking than it, so in that time, I was working on what I thought a novel had to be. By the time the news hit, I’d grown so much — not just in my work; but also in my mind, my heart, my core. I knew more about myself as a writer, I had a growing readership, and also a newfound courage. When I opened that document again, time had grown on it, the title was in my hand, and so many things snapped into place with insane force. Then I knew.
NA: Can you talk us through the writing process - when you have such an expansive idea for a book, how do you even start? What was your approach?
EO: I was writing the book before I knew I was. I’d published some as standalone short stories before, and I had a vague idea that I was building something bigger but I’d never brought them close enough together to really just see how linked they all were. I knew that sometimes when a story was done, the character wasn’t; that some kept recurring: like Wura, like Lagos, like Rain. My stories at the time were concerned and consumed with the energy of Vagabonds! already. Beginning, for me, looked like watching all of them swim to each other on the floor; looked like permitting myself to shelf the other manuscript I was working on, and then pouring new stories into the structure that was already now there.
NA: In an interview with Joshua Segun-Lean, you said “I still feel taken aback in part when I reread Vagabonds!, because of that feeling like someone other than me wrote it. I don’t recall how I became the person who could write that.” - do you still feel like you’re a different person when you create art? And does that person change depending on the kind of art you’re creating?
EO: By the time Joshua and I did that interview, I was working on Book Two, which is now done. When I was still writing it though, I felt separate from the person who wrote Vagabonds! — because I was. I’m starting to see how when I write, I’m also being (re)written. The person who wrote Vagabonds! is someone I respect. That’s a giant to me. It’s funny: as a younger writer, I thought I’d be writing from my brain; that there’d be a consistent self with a... style. But I don’t (write from there), and depending on what well of energy a particular work requires me to draw from, I also change. Writing Book Two felt like completing a vigorous dance with a living thing — a masquerade with its own movement — and for months my body was shaken from it, shaken by it. I finished dizzy. So it’s different with each one. When I listen I know what is and isn’t true for me. When I know, I act. When I act, I change. When it’s complete, I pause and take stock of myself only to find that parts of me have relocated into the work. It’s all me, so same, but different. The river of time keeps moving regardless, and me with it.
NA: You’ve often spoken about your love for dance, and it reminds me of a quote by Nawal El Saadawi where she said: “When I was young I wanted to be a dancer. But dancing is not only physical, it’s also in the mind. I now dance with my mind and write with my body” — can you relate to this relationship between dance and your writing?
EO: Oh I love this. I’d never heard that before. Dancing with my body for me is a separate practice from writing. Both pull on my spirit to gain form, but when I move, there is a place I touch that sort of situates me in my body and reminds me of it as a (habitable) place. As someone who used to dissociate a lot, that isn’t really substitutable to me; except maybe by boxing or driving — which also touch me in the same way. While writing, on the other hand, there’s a place I go that is actually quite far from my body. I’m not fully embodied when I’m making stories; I’m sort of sitting between realms, and especially when I’m in the thick of it, I have to *think* about my body to remember it. That’s the core difference for me: in one practice I am physically present; in the other I’m at a spiritual address.
NA: In an interview with Creative Review, you spoke about precision, and wanting to be as precise as possible with your art. How do you know when something you’ve written or created has achieved what you originally intended?
EO: My main intention with any work is to complete it. I know something is done when I get still and the chatter in my mind stops. Often, I’m exhausted, because even though I’ve been either sitting or laying down while doing the work, I’m doing rigorous things. God and I talk about when I’ve done my best, when I’m lying, when I’m done. I know I’m done when I surrender. I know I’m done when it feels/is enough.
NA: If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, what would it be?
EO: Remember that all rules were made by people. Take the work you gravitate toward — in writing and reading — seriously, because you’re the most qualified person to create a canon that satisfies what your work intends to be. Identify your peers and elders. What story is your story friends with? What does your writing resist, and why? Respect your taste, your desires, your fears. If writing is what you want to do for a life, try to find ways to tune out external noise so that your thoughts remain accessible to you. Make sure to keep your love for words even as you try to navigate the industry, make sure to take care of the place that leads you to words, and words right back to you.
Also, you’re more free than you think. You will learn what’s possible by writing more of what’s true.
Eloghosa Osunde is an award-winning Nigerian writer and artist, and an alumna of the Lambda Literary Workshop, New York Film Academy and the Caine Prize Workshop. A columnist for the Paris Review, Osunde’s writing and visual art has been published in Granta, Berlin Quarterly, Vogue, the New York Times and Paper Magazine, amongst others.
Winner of the 2021 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and the recipient of a Miles Morland Scholarship, Osunde’s debut novel Vagabonds! was shortlisted for the inaugural Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.
You can read an excerpt of Vagabonds! here.
