Kiprop Kimutai is a writer of many accolades, including the 2019 James Baldwin Fellowship. He speaks to Paukwa’s Cheruto Rono about the impact of the English language on African stories and literature.
Cheruto: I am a big fan of your stories and your occasional #overheard tweets. Have you overheard anything recently that tickled you or piqued your interest?
Kiprop: I think many things are happening in the world, and it all depends on what you want to be curious about, what you will attune your senses to. By overheard do you mean eavesdropped 😊? I heard a woman say that she didn’t mind not oiling her hands anymore after washing laundry because her beauty was behind her. I heard a man say that he decided to take a sip of beer after many years of not drinking, and after vomiting, thanked God for making him vomit.
I just finished Jennifer Doudna’s book “A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution,” where she speaks about co-discovering the gene-editing tool CRISPR. I am curious how this tool will transform the world, whether it will be used for, or against, people.
Cheruto: To bury yourself into a new book and see what awaits you within those pages is interesting, isn’t it? Some works of literature are so informative and cue us into ideas and inventions, and others transport us to new places to meet new people. At the moment however, I am more eager to know about your journey as a writer, and I wonder how you ventured onto this path of storytelling.
Kiprop: It is hard to map out a writing journey, for it doesn’t happen linearly. I was allowed to imagine as a child, and we had many books, and back then the TV station played from 4 PM, lol. I had an ear for story and I was curious about people who were around me. AMKA Writers’ Forum was a necessary space for me to begin sharing the stories that I had written, and to read other writers too. I was at AMKA when Ndinda Kioko was the facilitator and that was how I began to read her as well. Literature has always been a place of solace to me, and I keep going back to it, either by reading or writing. It is how I live and make sense of life.
Cheruto: And who are the other writers, in addition to Ndinda Kioko, who’ve have had a strong influence on your work and shaped your career?
Kiprop: I don’t psycho-analyse my work in order to determine who has influenced what. I see my work as a result of my hard work and the many stories I keep reading and listening to. My stories are built from several places. The elders in my lineage tell me many stories, about the past, and their childhoods, and about people in their childhoods, and they tell these stories interestingly, and I consider them my influences. I am currently reading Peter Stamm and I admire how he carefully underpins his characters’ interiorities, and how he doesn’t spare their feelings and experiences. I am also reading short stories by Gothataone Moeng, a writer from Botswana, who writes powerful stories that are mostly located in the urban village of Serowe. I just finished Euripides’s Medea and D.H. Lawrence’s The Odor of the Chrysanthemums. So, my influences come from many, many places. I read a lot of non-fiction too, and Twitter threads, and I am a fan of TV shows and documentaries. I am watching ETHOS, a Turkish show on Netflix which is spectacularly written. African writers whose works I admire include Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Gloria Mwaniga, Onyinye Ihezukwu, Makena Onjerika, Arinze Ifeakandu, Yvonne Owuor, Chimamanda Adichie, Binyavanga Wainaina, Petina Gappah, Uzodinma Iweala, Nadifa Mohamed, Dalle Abraham, Dennis Mugaa and many, many others.
Cheruto: You have definitely introduced me to writers whose works I am yet to encounter just by sharing this list, so thank you. From a reader’s perspective, it’s always interesting to know what writers like to read.
You have mentioned being a member of the AMKA Writer’s Forum and how being a part of this space propelled you to share your own stories. I believe that being a part of such forums emboldens writers to continue in their creative pursuits. Was this the same for you as you began sharing your work with the world? And what were some of the first stories you published?
Kiprop: My story “A Gentle Man From Iten” was published as part of Jalada Africa’s first anthology, “Sketch of a Bald Woman in the Semi-Nude and Other Stories” I can’t say if it was my first published story, but I will say it was a memorable experience because we controlled the production of the anthology: reading and editing each other’s stories and making them as ready as possible for release. It was an exciting time, when, as young African writers, we claimed our creative space! I was also moved when my story “Princess Sailendra of Malindi” was republished by Msafiri, Kenya Airways in-flight magazine and was read by passengers who reached me through my Twitter handle. Every story eventually finds its home.
Cheruto: I have read both stories, and I really enjoyed them! One of my favorite elements of these works was how you wove Kenyan languages into the dialogue as well as the narration. Tell me why this is important for you.
Kiprop: English was once a colonizing tool, used to erase our history and experience. Now, we are using it to claim our existence. In his essay “The African Writer and the English Language,” Chinua Achebe says that the price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. I am making English pay its price. I also like the idea of a companionship of languages, which Arundhati Roy framed. I see the relationship between the many languages spoken in Kenya. I see how they collaborate to create, test and amend our many Kenyas.
Cheruto: This reminds me of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s thoughts about the tyranny of language and his decision to write his books in Gikuyu. This was thought of as a radical choice at the time, but I believe that this was and still is his way of reinforcing the belief that stories can exist in written format outside of colonialist languages. It’s yet another reminder that language is indeed a powerful tool and gives some insight into the conscious choice that multilingual writers often have to make about the role they want language to play in their stories.
As I read your stories, the aspect of code-switching that you employ comes easy to me since it is a very common phenomenon in Kenyan dialogue. I do wonder how it is perceived by audiences from monolingual regions.
Kiprop: I am of the idea that no human being is monolingual. You may only speak English, Kipsigis or Tagalog, but you use various forms of this language, depending on your location, and the realities and politics you are tackling. People in France speak many kinds of French, and I am not just referring to dialects. In the same way that people in Kenya speak many kinds of Kiswahili. We all code-switch. Each one of us. Stories that play with language shouldn’t be an impediment, in my opinion. I have never struggled with books that do this, such as Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners. Instead, I have deeply enjoyed reading such books. We live in a complex world, and I believe readers find more pleasure when language is used to magnify this complexity, as opposed to simplifying it.
Cheruto: Aside from writing, you have also been a panelist at the Franschhoek Literary Festival and have participated in a number of workshops, including the Caine Prize and Kwani? Trust. You also have immense experience as an editor; you curated the anthology Walking the Tightrope.
How has being a part of these different literary spaces refined your editorial skills and your interaction with the works of other writers?
Kiprop: These literary spaces have taught me to be a better reader, and to find voices and ideas that are in communication with mine. Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but within supportive communities. By reading others keenly, you learn to pay attention to language and begin to see its possibilities. Being part of the process of making an anthology of stories a shared reality as I was with Jalada Africa) is an immense and an unmeasurable pleasure.
I would say I have been more of a reader, in these spaces you mention, more than an editor. Editing is a very specific skill, which I have learned as a writer, but at the end of the day, it is a profession on its own. The workshops I participated in were opportunities, not only for creating stories free from the scurry-and scramble of life, but also for long, meaningful conversations on art. They were wonderful ways of getting to know other African writers and their works.
Cheruto: Your experiences as a reader and as an editor have obviously compounded your writing skills. So much so that in 2019, you were awarded the James Baldwin Fellowship. I would love to hear more about the fellowship and what it meant for you to receive it.
Kiprop: I was excited to be selected as a Maison Baldwin fellow and got a chance to spend a month in Saint-Paul de Vance in the South of France, the same town where James spent 17 years of his life. I saw the house he lived in, which is now dilapidated and in the process of being demolished to build a spa, and that is very sad. I met people who called him a friend, and a man who used to translate his telegrams from French to English. This fellowship is open to emerging writers who identify as Black or of the African diaspora and who are working in the spirit of James Baldwin. James was a bold person, of rigorous intellect, who took up space and wrote stories and essays the world keeps going back to. His ideas are everywhere in the world now, and it was quite an experience to imagine him as a person, in a specific location of the world, in a particular time. I read many of his books there. I read “If Beale Street Could Talk”, “Fire Next Time” and “Jimmy’s Blues” in Saint-Paul de Vance. He should be proud that Black and African diaspora artists keep coming to the town to live in, to write, think and exchange ideas.
Cheruto: I am quite familiar with James Baldwin’s work, but I had no idea that he lived in France… you learn something new every day. His contribution to literature, as well as the legacy he left behind, is incomparable. Thank you for letting me glimpse into that period of your career.
My final question is about your current work: any stories you’re spinning at present? Any releases we can hope for in the near future?
Kiprop: I am superstitious about sharing information on what is still being formed. I feel honoured that stories come to me. It is like when a beautiful butterfly perches on your shoulder. You don’t want to move too much, or say too much, and terrify it. I am a storyteller at heart though and I love being read. I will call you when any of the stories I am working has been published and shared.
Cheruto: Asante sana for engaging with me, I will eagerly await that call.
