Unboxing Ọrẹolúwa Oyinlọlá

Interview by Marvel Nimurungi

Ọrẹolúwa Oyinlọlá is a recent graduate of the University of Ibadàn. She is also a one-time stage play actress, veteran cycler, retired violinist, amateur flautist, expert àmàlà ro-er, and record Olúmọ hillclimber. Still hungry for hobbies, she is now learning to play the guitar and writing short stories, one of which we unpack in our conversation. In this talk, we discuss infusing culture into your writing, humanizing statistics, highlighting untold stories and much more. I hope you enjoy picking Oreoluwa’s brilliant brain like I did. 

MARVEL

Your piece is so Nigerian, and I love it, and we’re going to get into it but before we begin, I just want to officially welcome you to Unbox: Emerging Voices, where we explore the writing life of you, our published writer. I’m excited to have you, and I would love to begin by asking you a bit about yourself, particularly as it pertains to you as a writer. 

Ọrẹolúwa

Hi! I’m really excited to be here as well. My name is Ọrẹolúwa; I grew up here in Lagos, Nigeria, and I studied at a university in Oyo State. I haven’t been writing for very long in terms of writing short stories, but I have been writing poems for a bit. 

There was this day I was just bored, and I wrote out that story without thinking too much or thinking about getting published because I wasn’t taking my short story writing as seriously, and all of that. So I think I became a serious issue writer when I was in my final year. 

I did Communication, and right from day one, I was like, there’s no way I’m doing academic research. So I said I was going to do creative writing just because I couldn’t imagine doing academic research. And when I said this, what I had in mind was I was gonna write poems for my project, but by the time we came around I was more comfortable with an anthology of short stories. So for my projects in my last year of school, I did an anthology of short stories. And I think that’s sort of my writing journey up until now. 

MARVEL

Oh, that is beautiful. I love to hear, first of all not doing what is expected of you, in college, like I love that. That’s so artistic of you, and I love exploring different styles and learning different things. Would you call yourself a writer of all of them? Do you think you’re pressing into fiction more? How would you define you and your craft in a room of writers? And also, it sounds like you’re figuring it out and that’s fine, too, but as of today where would you place yourself?

Ọrẹolúwa

I write short stories. I haven’t written poetry in years. I think I’m more comfortable writing short stories. I just enjoy writing.

MARVEL

Well, let me tell you I enjoyed reading yours, and I’m sure that everyone who has access to the Women’s issue did as well. I’d love to kind of get a little deeper into that and ask, how do these short stories come to you? Are there themes that sit within you for a long time? Are you usually trying to reveal something? Tell us a bit about your how.

Ọrẹolúwa

I think how stories come to me is more context-based.  I think I’ll just give you a bit of context as to that. So in 2021, I was on Twitter, and I saw this short story called the Life of Muri by Fuad Lawal, where Muri is very terrible in real life, then he dies, and his last born, you can imagine, is over pampered over indulged and all of that, and then his mother finds a wife for him, in the hopes that this will make him a more serious person, and eventually the woman gives birth, the child dies, and she leaves.

And I mean that was just maybe one paragraph out of the attached story. By the end of history, all I could do was wonder about this woman’s life. Yes, she had been married off to this man in order to save him, and she had lost her child. She did not love this man. This man didn’t love her, you know, and she just had to go on, move on with her life. And I thought about what he was for, and what the woman’s life was like. So I knew what it was that I wanted to write about, because it was inspired by this woman. Basically, this family is trying to find a solution for this boy that they love so much but nothing seems to work. 

And yeah, I imagine that that’s not a foreign story. It’s the reality of a lot of women in lower middle class Nigeria here. So that was sort of what inspired it.

 I started this story in January ‘21, but I didn’t finish it until last year. Sometimes, I don’t know what stories are about until I’m at the end or in the middle, and there are some I finish right from the get-go—even before I open my laptop, I know what I want to write.

MARVEL

Wow! You have stated such important things for writers to admit, and for young writers to even hear and be aware of, sometimes you feel it deep within, sometimes you’re like, sure, this is a shot in the dark, and we’re gonna see what happens. But I also love that you named that sometimes our work takes time, you know. Sometimes it takes simmering and waiting and even forgetting about it first. 

I also love what you said about how you were inspired. You began to think of the story that wasn’t being told. And that is something that I think ( and I don’t mean to make us seem better than the world) writers often seek to do: represent the unrepresented, or ask the question, what is it like for this woman? That is really inspiring.

I would love to dig a little deeper into the themes. I assessed and observed that there were themes of marriage and naming, which I think you did so beautifully. I was so stunned also by the obviously rich— and I’d love for you to clarify that tribe– tradition, culture, and language. I’m curious how directly exposed to that culture you were to be able to tell a story like that. Did you have to research? Is this what your life growing up was like? Tell us a bit about what it’s been like to infuse your culture, because I know you’re in Nigeria but the world is pretty westernized especially for us modern young people, in your writing.

Ọrẹolúwa

I’m really interested in my culture. I do speak my language very well. I am naturally interested in my culture’s religion and habits. So when I wrote the first draft, the names and the proverbs, I already knew because even though I grew up with my parents, I did spend a lot of time, and I still spend a lot of time with my grandfather, who is very Yoruba. And even though I’m not talking there, I’m watching and observing. And this is just natural. I’m not necessarily trying to know this. I’m not gonna study. I’m not trying to be an archaeologist when I go and visit my grandfather. I just sort of learn these things and know these things.

So I would say the proverbs came naturally but the other parts, like the songs are ocean songs, which is like a religion. And my grandfather is Christian, so there’s no way I would have known that. But I had to do some research, and I just want to say that unfortunately, there’s a lot more work that can be done on the documentation of these traditional religions. Thankfully, I could find some of them on Youtube and it was a really really interesting discovery process. Writing the final draft I found very interesting, learning something and then knowing how to apply it into the story, knowing how to make it fall in line with the plots and things like that. But yeah, I’ll say it was this song in particular, that I had to do actual deliberate research on both with the culture, and with my experience, anyway.

MARVEL

I think it’s funny, you don’t wanna do any academic research and then you literally were researching. But you’re bringing something very important again, for young creatives to know which is that sometimes you do need to be asking your own questions. You’re also presenting something to be grieved just like the lost traditions and religions, which obviously lends itself to the reality of colonization, as well as the fact that a lot of those religions and traditions were not written. But I really love that you are able to find stuff. I read your story and I was like either this girl is religious and has been immersed in this, or she really knows how to ask questions and find answers, you know.

The naming thing was so stunning and I would love to know your understanding of the power of naming. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Ọrẹolúwa

Hmm! The importance of names. So prior to writing this, I had written this story called Adri which in English means charcoal and the thing about charcoal is that you have to literally wash your hand with soap  because anything else you touch is stained by the charcoal on your fingers. And basically the name of the star girl is this and that is the name that you give to someone who’s mother has passed or whose mother passed during the time that she was being born. And you can sort of see name and the impact that it has, like every time that her name is called she has to remember that she has lost her mother, because that’s attached behind the name, and so I think that having to come off of that horse to write this one it spread into this story as well.

MARVEL

What you’re saying reflects that it was sort of an outflow which makes sense to me. A lot of the writer’s experience in writing is almost subconscious; things just sit within you, and then come out of you. And you’re right. Your big theme wasn’t naming, it just stood out to me. Really, you were just trying to look at this woman and consider what would change the trajectory of her life? Thank you for explaining that. Before we wrap up… 

Ọrẹolúwa

Oh, we’re wrapping up already.

MARVEL

Oh, you’re having fun? I mean, I can always ask questions, but I would love to know, are there other themes that have traversed your writing or are you not a theme girl? Tell us a bit about how your passion points and the things that you care deeply about have met your writing.

Ọrẹolúwa

That’s a very good question. Thank you very much. Again I wrote this during my project here, and so when I submitted because of my project, I wanted to write about women and mental health and humanize the statistics, right? When you hear 1 in 1,000 women suffer from this your mind runs to statistics but what is life like for that one person? So in my project, I wanted to humanize these stories. I am passionate about women’s lives in general. I mean I can’t see life outside of that so it’s not even being put in a box; I don’t see how I can write anything outside of that. Because I’m a woman, it’s going to be tilted from that point of view. I can’t imagine anything outside of my experiences. I can’t, no matter how fictional it is. I can’t empathize with another person’s perspective. 

MARVEL

Yeah, that’s interesting. I have a slight push back, because you’re totally an empathetic writer. That’s exactly what you did in the last piece. But, I also hear what you’re saying about your experience and particularity coloring all of your craft, and I think that’s great. I really believe it when you say you seek to provide visibility and again I keep laughing, because you started with, “I don’t wanna research. I don’t know about research.”  But like that is the kind of writer that you are. You are a curious writer, and I love it.

I would love to know who your inspirations are? Who are the people you look to?

Ọrẹolúwa

Who do you think?

MARVEL

I’m feeling like it’s the Queen Chimamanda.

 Ọrẹolúwa

Definitely. Yes, of course. But another person that I read and I was like I definitely love this person, and want to write something as good as this is Chimeka Garricks. He wrote A Broken People’s Playlist. You should read him! Oh, so lovely, so good, so perfect, so amazing! 

MARVEL

I would love for you to tell us why Garricks is in your Hall of Fame.

Ọrẹolúwa

Hmm! I think it was the way it was written. It’s a compilation of short stories and I think it was beautifully done. It was very intentionally written. Very touching. So I like that.

MARVEL

I love that you are able to state what it is you observe, because I think the moment we know what stands out to us and what we like, we are able to borrow and or copy; I think doing art sometimes is just copying. 

What are your hopes moving forward? 

Ọrẹolúwa

I’m asking myself that question every day to be honest. I know I want to write. I don’t think I want to be a full-time writer, right? But I want to publish more. Maybe. And then on the literary aspect, I want to start a literary club, a book club for students in secondary school. And then I’m thinking of doing a Master’s in English and Literature, and maybe doing a PhD, and then just teaching. That’s basically what the future looks like for me now.

MARVEL

It looks bright. It looks colourful. I’m very excited to see where you go and I know we’re both going to look back at this your first interview and say, Wow.

Do you have any 2 cents for the people as it pertains to writing?

Ọrẹolúwa

Your biggest opponent is the blank page so I think you just have to put in one word after the other. That was the hack I used. I just didn’t care. I mean, I had a deadline. You just put in one word after the other. It doesn’t have to make sense, I mean, hopefully, it makes sense. But that’s not the point right now. 

MARVEL

One word after the other, love it. Thank you so much Oreoluwa for your time, and for your work, and your heart for women period, but even for the unseen and the marginalized. I really appreciate getting to know and meet you a bit. 

Ọrẹolúwa

Thank you. This is very enjoyable for me. Thank you very much. Hopefully, we can keep in touch after this. Okay, alright, thank you so much. 

MARVEL

Thank you. Bye.

THE END