Francesca Ekwuyasi
In Conversation
We spoke to Francesca Ekwuyasi about the journey that led to Butter Honey Pig Bread, her extraordinary debut novel about food, family, and forgiveness.
Interviewed by Nancy Adimora.
NA: I would love to start from the very beginning. When did this whole writing thing start? When was the seed planted?
FE: So as a writer in general, I think the seed was planted when I read Anthills of The Savannah by Chinua Achebe in secondary school. Before that, I’d always written fake entries in my journals about my life, just making things up, lying basically, but just to my journal. I would write fake correspondences between fictional people, usually love interests, because that's what I was into as a kid. But in secondary school, I read Anthills of The Savannah and The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah for a literature competition. I didn't win, but I was really inspired because up until then, all the West African literature I'd read was folklore, which is beautiful and wonderful, but it was cool to read these books that were set in contemporary times, not quite my time, but still relatable.
Then of course, I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, and Sefi Atta’s Everything Good will Come, and they were specifically about young women and young girls. I think that's when I realised my interest was worthwhile - that writing about my own life, or fictionalising people like me, was worthwhile because these authors that I really admired had done it.
NA: There's a transition that takes place between “I'm interested in writing” to “I think I can be a published author” - I would love to know when that switch happened in your mind and what that looked like for you?
FE: Okay, so that took a really long time. My first short story that was published is in Brittle Paper. I'm a bit embarrassed because of course, I was just so happy for it to be published that I don't actually know if it's good. I wrote it years before I submitted it for publication. Honestly, the fact that Ainehi published that really gave me confidence. It was queer and very epistolary - half personal reflection, half letter. It was so unlike anything I had read online in the African literary space, so I was so encouraged by that. By the time I submitted it, I was already writing Butter Honey Pig Bread but I didn't have a goal for it. I didn't know what it would be but I've known since I was small that I wanted to write books, like Sefi Atta. She actually went to the same secondary school I went to, Queens College in Yaba, Lagos. So just seeing an example of that, I thought “oh, yeah, me too”. I just didn't know what the story would be. In the process of writing Butter Honey Pig Bread, I was writing lots of short stories, and after the boost of confidence from Brittle Paper, I started submitting to other journals and magazines and getting a lot of feedback. I got published a few times, and also got rejected a lot of times. It was just an encouraging process to be in the arena, so to speak, knowing that at times it's subjective, because I would have the same stories be rejected by one publication but accepted by another. All of it just showed me that I can also be here.
However, the main reason I submitted Butter Honey Pig Bread for publication was because I lost my work visa. Now I'm a citizen of Canada, but at the time, I was on a work visa, and it wasn't renewed, so I was in this horrible immigration limbo. I had written most of the novel, and I was like, Well, I have nothing to lose, I might be deported so might as well just submit this. It was that feeling of being at the end of the line that encouraged me to take the chance on myself and be a novelist. It was very satisfying and fulfilling to be a short story writer and to get published in journals but, you know, having a book, a full novel, is a different thing.
NA: Let’s talk about the novel - Butter Honey Pig Bread. I've obviously read it (and I loved it), but I’d love you to tell me about the book, in your words.
FE: Absolutely. So Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story about three women. One of them is Kambirinachi, who believes she's an ogbanje. Can I ask about your background?
NA: I’m Igbo.
FE: So you know exactly what I'm talking about. Kambirinachi believes this about herself, and the book is basically about what that means for her life. She chooses to stay alive instead of fulfilling the cycle of birth and death and has twin daughters. The narrative is basically following the consequences of her decision to stay alive, or her own perception of the consequences of her decision to stay alive. It's a story about relationships, relationships between family, sisters, and specifically relationships between women. That's my main interest - mother daughter dynamics, friendships between women, love affairs between women. It's also strange because I'm not a mother, and maybe one day I'll be a mother if it's in the stars for me, but it's a lot about motherhood and birthing. It's also about food and love and sex and travel. Ultimately, it's about the things that really had my interest in those formative years, like 23 to 30, when you think you're grown and really you are not.
NA: So the thing that I want to pick up on is you keep on saying, she believes that she's an ogbanje, and not that she is one. When I was reading the book I just assumed that she was, but now I'm thinking about the stories we tell ourselves and the difference between our reality and what we perceive to be our reality. Was this distinction intentional?
FE: Yes, because I think agency and self-perception are so important. Exactly as you said, the stories we tell ourselves are a huge part of my interest as a writer and a storyteller. For Kambirinachi, she believes this about herself, and her whole life is shaped by this belief. I believe her. I believe what she believes, but her daughter Kehinde might not. Then that affects her perception of her mother, and Kehinde’s own beliefs about this awful thing that happened to her as a kid and what that means about herself and her body and her self worth. Even in the story, in her section, Kehinde speaks for herself, and that's a direct result of wanting to be in control after feeling disempowered. Kambirinachi actually believes that she is an ogbanje and her life plays out that way. Taiye believes she's lonely and somewhat unlovable so she makes choices in this kind of hungry, careless, sloppy way.
NA: Earlier, you alluded to the expansive idea of being interested in women, their relationships with each other and their relationship with themselves. Why was this of interest to you? What prompted you to want to explore this in book form?
FE: I think two things, first being my personal life. My father passed on when I was a small girl and my grandfather and my grandmother took over raising me and my siblings and cousins. Then my grandfather passed also. So really, I was raised by women - my grandmother and my aunties. Women are who I listen to and who I look for. The men in my life are lovely and nice, but they don't make the decisions so I'm just mostly interested in what women have to say. That sounds so mean, haha.
NA: Lol no it doesn’t at all – it sounds wonderful. Another thing I love about this book is the title. How did it come to you and what does it mean to you?
FE: First, I chose it because I like the way it sounds. It really came very suddenly. I submitted the manuscript to an indie publisher in Canada here called Arsenal Pulp, and after several months, they wrote back saying they were interested. Immediately, I wrote back saying the name had changed because as I was writing it, it was coming to me. One of the characters, as you know, is a cook and butter is a significant thing because she noticed the difference between margarine and butter. That sticks out a lot. Food is part of it, and those are the ingredients that came up in my mind, and I love how the title sounds.
NA: I love how it sounds too. Have you watched The Bear?
FE: No, but I've listened to podcasts about it…
NA: You should definitely watch it. It feels similar to Butter Honey Pig Bread in that food plays such a beautiful role in both stories. Can you tell me why you were interested in exploring food in this way?
FE: First, it’s purely my interest. This book is a very indulgent project for me because I got to just follow my passion, and I don't know if it's possible to do that more than once, haha. Food is a huge part of my life. Personally, I love food, but also creatively. The first writers and entertainers that caught my attention were chefs - like Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson. Also in my personal life, I enjoyed watching my grandmother cooking. Food as an anchor for people is almost universal in my experience of the world - food at the center, and everyone around it. It’s the kind of a medium that can connect people. It's effective as a medium in real life, but also as a literary device. Have you read the book, or watched the movie, Like Water for Chocolate?
NA: No, but I'm going to write it down.
FE: I watched the movie when I was quite young and it made such a huge impression on me. Recently, I started reading the book, and I suddenly realised, oh, yeah, this is where I learned this thing, because it's exactly the same. The characters are just living their lives, and they will casually drop a recipe. I didn't know that it was a thing that was so blatantly done before, but it has been. Anyway, all that is to say food really worked as a literary device to connect characters where dialogue would fail or where it wasn't time for dialogue. It’s also like a really cool way to ground myself as a writer and also readers in the senses. Reading can be so intellectual and I like to be in my body when it feels safe. There are many ways that I dissociate and try to move time quickly or escape the present, but I wanted the process of reading the story to ground the reader in the present. When you're thinking of food, your mouth starts to water. Even with other things like when you are thinking of falling in love, there's that tension we can all relate to. It brings you back to your body. That's why food plays a huge role.
NA: I love that. Another device you used was letter writing and it was a really beautiful way to explore the relationship between the twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye. You mentioned that your writing journey started with letters, why did you want to incorporate them into this story?
FE: I think everything kind of goes back to my childhood, which is so funny, because I like to make fun of North Americans for blaming everything on their childhood, but now I'm exactly like that. A lot of Nigerian families have been divided by immigration with people living abroad. Growing up, my father lived abroad and so my grandmother would encourage us to literally write letters to him. In those letters, I would write about everything and really try to make whatever I was writing about more juicy than it actually was. Eventually, it became like a space, kind of like journaling. Somebody might read it, but you don't really know. For the character Taiye who desperately wanted to connect with her sister, letter writing was kind of journaling for her. She was saying things that she might not have said in person, really personal things about lovers and affairs. So that was, again, another device to connect the sisters even while there was silence between them. Taiye never intended to send the letters so I wanted to imbue that feeling of reading something you're not meant to like when you're reading someone else's journal, that feeling of I'm not supposed to know this, but I do. The letters allowed for that.
NA: And were you specifically drawn to the idea of writing about twins?
FE: Yes. When I started this project in 2013, I knew I wanted to write about someone who believes she's an ogbanje - whether or not the readers believe her is up to them. I also wanted to write about twins, specifically identical monozygotic twins because I wanted to explore the perceived sense of betrayal or a fracture between two people that have the closest possible relationship (other than the bond of growing from another person, which exists between mother and child). Even with friends, if there's conflict or a fight, friendship breakups are devastating. What happens when it's much more heightened? I really wanted to explore that messiness and twins gave a great opportunity for that.
Also, I love reading about twins. All my favorite authors have written about twins, and I wanted to have a go.
NA: Well you did a fantastic job. And I have two more questions for you. The first is a pivot away from the story and more about the writing process. When you sat down to write, what did that look like for you? Were you waking up early in the morning? Was it 1000 words a day? Walk us through your process.
FE: I love this question, because I feel like my answers are vaguely disappointing and I like that because I want everyone to know that there’s no perfect way to write. I love writing and I love literature, and I have writers that to me are celebrities - Zadie Smith, for example. There's this mysticism, this rare special thing about being a novelist that a lot of my favorite writers exude, and I love that for them but that's not what I want for myself. I want everyone in my life to know that you can literally just write, so that's the preface of the answer. Honestly, I didn't have a ritual. It was not necessarily an intentional process. Now I'm trying to develop one. Now I'm like, goddamn, I have to wake up at five and I have to do this and that – but at the time it was like a love affair. I was in grad school and I was working as well. My life was really full. I was trying to survive, so I wrote any time, right before class or after class, or between shifts, or just whenever I had a moment I would scribble things down. It took a long time because of that, but it also gave a lot of space for me to learn and grow and research. A lot of the techniques I use are genuinely what I learned from reading books like Sweet Valley High and The Baby-Sitters Club. In my book, each section is from the point of view of one speaker - I learned that from Sweet Valley High. I learned epistolary fiction from letter writing but also from a book I love by an Irish writer called Feeling Sorry for Celia…
NA: That’s such a good title.
FE: I know. I read it when I was an early teen and I loved it, and the entire thing is just letters. What I'm trying to say is the techniques I used in my book, I learned from reading. I learned to write sensuously from reading authors who wrote sensuously. That sort of meandering Flanuer style of writing where the character is walking and thinking, I learned that from Teju Cole and James Baldwin.
NA: I love that idea of books being your teacher because it demystifies the process. Not everybody can afford an MFA. All you have to do is read with a different level of intentionality – so not just enjoying the story, but also being intentional about studying the different writing techniques. I think your answer is very encouraging for people who would think they need to go off to Iowa before they can learn to write a good book.
FE: You get it. That's exactly it. I don't have a creative writing degree, but I do come from a family of artists. My grandmother encouraged reading, and storytelling was just like a huge part of my life. I work at a university right now, where I'm a mentor for MFA students, and half the time I'm just like, why are you here?! You don't need to pay to write, but of course, everyone has a different path. There are some MFA programs that will pay you and give you time and structure and feedback to complete work. But yes, demystifying the process is a big thing for me. I came to writing because I love it, and I love reading and I love stories. As you know, Nigeria has a wealth of writers and storytellers from published people to just cousins gossiping, so I feel like I'm a product of that.
NA: Ok I lied, I've got two more questions.
FE: Oh please, I'm having a great time.
NA: You spoke about wanting to add more structure to your writing process. So does that mean you're working on something new? What does the future look like for you as it relates to further books down the line?
FE: I’m an artist as well and this year I collaborated with a friend of mine who's an artist, chef and musician to create an experimental non-fictional work where I wrote essays in response to an album he created. That's coming out in the fall. It's called Curious Sounds, A Dialogue in Three Movements, and it's with Roger Mooking. I am also working on my second novel. The truth is I have three, potentially four ideas and drafts and things I started but for the rest of this year, I'm focusing on one novel, and I am finding that I need structure.
Many writers talk about waking up at 5 or 6 in the morning to write, and I'm really wanting to do that now because writing at 23 is different from writing at 33. I am simply tired. I need to stretch. I have less energy in general, so I have to guard my writing time more jealously than I have before. So yes, I am now waking up early and writing a few words. I'm scheduling the time, and I'm going for a writing residency at the end of this month, for two weeks to work with a mentor. Two, three years ago when my first novel came out, I participated in an interview series where a bunch of different writers were asked about the writing process. My answer was like, I write wherever - I write at the grocery store, I write on my phone, I write on the bus. Everybody else was saying, I need a desk, I can only write on a desk. Now, three years later, I finally get it. Now I want a desk, I want to be left alone, I need a computer. I need things that work for me.
NA: Hmmm, I get that. And finally, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, what would it be?
FE: I have so many. The most important one is just to write. You have to write. When I’m writing, I like to think of my friends as my audience. We have a shared language so there's no over-explaining necessary and I think that's a special thing. I don't think that every story has to be for everyone. You should think about who your story is for. For me, that audience is my friends. So write for your readers and read widely. Read across genres, across cultures. If you can, read across languages with translations, because books will be your best teachers as a storyteller.
Francesca Ekwuyasi is a learner, storyteller, and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. She was awarded the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers in 2022 for her debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). Butter Honey Pig Bread was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Dublin Literary Award.
