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We are seated on a day bed of patchwork upholstery, one of the innumerable proofs of Peju Alatise’s artistic ingenuity.

The multi-faceted
artist and writer says she is usually referred to as an old soul and it
is easy to see why. She speaks like one who has lived many lifetimes
and her debut novel ‘Orita Meta’ (2006) is what she terms her attempt
at understanding what life is really about.

‘Orita Meta’ looks
at three generations of women and the challenges of being an African
woman; and borrows a lot from Yoruba philosophy and folklore. The
writer says that her Yoruba heritage is an immutable part of who she
is. “It’s a part of me. Some of the stories in the book were stories my
mum had told me when I was young; and my grandmother too,” she says.

The book’s prologue
is profound in that it goes deep into the Yoruba philosophy of the
spiritual and its influence on the destiny of man. “A lot of people
have told me they found the prologue poetic, some have said esoteric,”
she says of the segment, which depicts how a woman meets with the devil
of the crossroads, who then attempts to read her palm.

On feminism

Alatise may come
across as a feminist because her art often dwells on the female as
subject matter and ‘Orita Meta’ tells stories of women, but she is wary
of the term. “I do not think ‘Orita Meta’ is a book meant for women
(simply) because it’s about women,” she says. “It’s not about fighting
and burning the bras. If I define feminism, I see that it is about
equal rights. If a man has the right to eat, can’t a woman have the
same right? Fighting for my right to be human is ridiculous. For as
long as feminism means a woman can make her own choices, then you can
call me a feminist. If feminism says I have the right to live, then I
am.”

Starting to write

Unlike many writers
who profess an awareness of their abilities from a young age, Alatise
never knew she could write. “I am talkative, I like to tell stories and
I have a strange imagination but I was not a writer,” she insists.

According to her,
it all began with painting. She did a couple of artworks for a close
friend and he told her to write short stories about each of the works.
“It was interesting writing about all the short stories,” she says.

Before long,
writing became a part of her. “I did a lot of faces and wrote stories
behind the faces,” she adds. At her studio, she would print out the
stories and lay them out on a table and people visiting the studio
would read them. However, “my closest friend lost her husband and it
was a painful loss for her and I felt for her. That was when I began
writing ‘Orita Meta’,” she says.

‘Orita Meta’

The process of
writing the book was mostly about her asking questions about existence.
“Why do [we] cry when people die? It could be for different reasons;
lose of income, security and survival,” she says. “For some, it could
be for loss of friendship and companionship. It was about being able to
create fictional characters that were influenced by various people I
had encountered. The challenges of these characters were some of the
answers to my questions about life.”

Alatise admits to
having enjoyed the whole process of writing, getting published and
finally holding the book in her hands, in spite of the challenges of
getting a publisher in Nigeria. She reveals that she got a lot of
rejections, with varying reasons given. “I had one who said that I
should come back after five years because good books are written after
five years. I got crazy responses,” she reveals with some amusement.

Undeterred, she
sent off the manuscript to a friend in South Africa who was working
with magazine. “He showed it to his editor and they thought it was
fantastic.” She left for South Africa almost immediately and had to pay
for an editor. It was eventually published in South Africa, but Alatise
admits that it was basically a self-published work.

While Alatise began
writing ‘Orita Meta’ out of a need to understand the essence of being,
the novel has taken on a life of its own way beyond the author’s
initial intention. It was nominated for the ANA/Flora Nwapa Prize for
Women’s Writing. Alatise, who enjoys collecting books, also loves to
read and in recent times has found herself reading and being fascinated
by Magical Realism.

Rhythmic Prose

“I was recently
introduced to the works of Latin American writer, Eduardo Galeano. I
find him humorous, very philosophical and witty. He writes like he is
dreaming,” she says. Chinua Achebe and Brazilian writer, Paulo Coelho
are also favourites, whose works have influenced her craft including
‘Orita Meta’, which she terms ‘Rhythmic Prose’. “I am fascinated by
Achebe’s use of language in writing and also the fact that he writes
from the perspective of an old soul… Reading Coelho, I asked myself
‘Are you really allowed to do this?” says Alatise, thrilled by the
freedom of imagination and possibilities which Magical Realism affords.

With a children’s
story book and a play already in the works, this 36-year-old graduate
of Architecture proves that her foray into writing is not a fluke.
Having made a success of her career as a visual artist, it will not be
a surprise to see her do the same as an author, especially as her first
steps have yielded noticeable results.