Empathy is what writing is about
Special guest of the South Ken Kids Festival, we have the pleasure of publishing a guest post by Véronique Tadjo. She is a novelist, poet, painter and academic. She also writes and illustrates children’s books. Born in Paris, of an Ivorian father and a French mother, she was brought up in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire). You can meet her at the Institut Français on Sunday 20th of November.
'When I started writing for young people several decades ago, I had already published poems and novels for adults. But I was attracted by the prospect of a new adventure: taking part in the emergence of children’s literature in francophone Africa. It was exciting and full of novelty and freedom. The challenge was to trigger the imagination of boys and girls living in cities where oral traditional tales were gradually disappearing. We had become the new griots, the modern story tellers. I wrote and illustrated several books successively, Le seigneur de la danse (Lord of the dance) Mamy Wata et le Monstre (Mamy Wata and the Monster), Grand-mère Nanan (Grandma Nana) and Soro et le grain de maïs magique (The Lucky Grain of Corn) (published by Milet publishing, Chicago and Nouvelles Editions Ivoiriennes, Abidjan ). It was the beginning of a passion and I never looked back. Since then, I have produced albums in conjunction with my work as an author.
My books often take inspiration from the stories spread through oral literature. When I work on a picture book, I try to reclaim a bit of what has been lost in the oral rendering. I find that the illustrations compensate for that. The images take the readers into a new imaginary world in the same way as storytellers lead their audiences with their voice. I enjoy weaving my narratives around mythical characters that have a large scope. Mamy Wata, the African mermaid, for example, is a true Pan-African character. Her legend is known by virtually all coastal people in the two Congos, Gabon, Guinea, Benin, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. She is also popular in Nigeria and under another name in South Africa. She even exists in the French West Indies and in Haïti as “La Maman de L’eau” (The Mother of Water). Everybody agrees that her kingdom is the sea or big rivers, that she is very beautiful and that she has extraordinary powers. She comes out of the water when she feels like it (no need for her to consult a wicked witch to give her some legs like in ‘The Little Mermaid’ of Hans Christian Andersen. She is totally amphibious!). She can mingle with people in villages and cities. The urban dimension of her character comes, no doubt, from the changing nature of oral narratives when storytellers adapt to the sociological context of their time.
When I write for adults, I look for historical female figures. I wrote the legend of Reine Pokou (Queen Pokou) who founded the Baoulé kingdom of Côte d’Ivoire in the 18th century (Reine Pokou, Actes Sud, Paris and Queen Pokou, Ayebia Clarke publishing, Oxford ). I chose to do it because I wanted to give her a stronger voice than in the official recounting of her exodus. I adapted and re-actualized the story by setting it in the context of a war of succession and by focusing on her torment as a mother and a queen having to sacrifice her only child in order to save her people.
But although my work may deal with bigger than life characters, I also like to develop narratives around ordinary women caught between tradition and modernity. Loin de mon père (Actes Sud, Paris) (Far from my Father, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville) is the story of Nina the main protagonist who goes back to Abidjan to bury her father. She confronts not only unresolved family issues that she had left behind but also questions about her own identity. The drama that unfolds is about the evolving role of women, the legacy of polygamy, and the economic challenges of daily life in an African country.
To attain some sort of universal value, a piece of work has to go deep into the particular in order to reveal our shared humanity. More than ever, as writers and artists, we have to propose alternative views for the youth but also for ourselves. Empathy is what writing is about. And we all need a great deal of it.'