Elif Shafak, in her TED talk, mentions the politics of fiction and how she as a writer from Turkey is sometimes perceived as being a representative and a storyteller of that particular region only. How do you feel about this? Do you think you need to represent Africa or, within the domain of fiction, do you allow yourself to move freely no matter where it takes you?
Frankly, I think the whole politics of fiction thing is flimsy and reflects the fear of stepping outside one’s comfort zone. I lived in Liberia for two years and have recently written a story based on that experience. In my opinion, it is the story that matters, not where one comes from. If the story lacks substance and borders on presumption, it should be dismissed as such, not because the writer is from elsewhere. In fact, when someone else writes about Nigeria, it provides an opportunity to see what the outsider sees, which in turn creates a platform to objectively critique narratives that do not do justice to our experience.Â
She represents the voices of women who are excluded from modern feminist rhetoric. She does not fit the sophisticated, twitter-dwelling, conference-attending image of the modern African feminist, but her actions, especially with respect to defending oppressed women, are significant acts of resistance to the status-quo. An uneducated woman standing up for a raped teenage girl in an obscure neighborhood in Africa might not get a million likes on Facebook. Nonetheless, her actions are as powerful; perhaps more powerful than a ten-page paper delivered at some women’s rights fancy-city-summit.Â
Varda Nisar is an Assistant Fiction Editor for The Missing Slate.
