We read and loved I.O. Echeruo’s short story collection, Expert in All Styles, so much that we included it in our list of best reviewed African books of 2023. And it was with the same excitement that we read his debut novel, The Comfort of Distant Stars, published by CanonGate Books this March.

In this interview with our editor-in-chief, Ukamaka Olisakwe, they discuss the Igbo belief system which is central to the novel, the choices I.O. made with its narrative structure and craft choices, the politics of religion, and more.

Ukamaka: It’s an honor to have you here, I.O. I would like to start first by congratulating you on writing this phenomenal work. The Comfort of Distant Stars is an epic, exquisitely written, and has contributed immensely to our archives. There are multiple ways of looking at this work and I came out of it in awe, and a niggling question which I must get out of the way: were you previously a diviner? I ask because the concrete details shared here, the depth and breadth of what’s illustrated here—from history to the evolving nature of our divinations to how practical the Igbo can be with regards to one’s relationship to God—astounds me. Only a knowledgeable student of our belief systems, an attentive student for that matter, can, in my mind, execute a project as rich as this.

I.O. Echeruo: Thanks so much for the kind words and for the opportunity to discuss the book. I smiled at the notion I could be a diviner, partly because it’s something I’m often accused of. It was important to me in this book to lay out parts of the complex and sophisticated Igbo belief system. African traditional belief systems have a richness and sophistication that is rarely recognized but that is relevant—and valid— in contending with the deepest questions of existence that we human beings, whatever our particular cultural history, have grappled with.

However, The Comfort of Distant Stars is a novel, and the artistic goal wasn’t exposition but weaving these components into a work of fiction—much in the way the ideas of modern physics are—to create an intellectually and emotionally layered and powerful book.

And if I have been successful, then any reader, whatever their cultural or ethnic background, will be able to get what we receive from all excellent “fictions” – a heightened consciousness of the world and a broadened sense of ourselves.

Uka: What the novel also does so well is how you move back and forth in time. We start in memory, with Ezeani reflecting on the pivotal events from when he was barely three years old and we move back and both, the novel chronological in its structure, yet also inverted, braided, events interwoven while the main plot stays straight. So immersive is this structure that we aren’t at any point disoriented by the novel’s movement in time. In fact, a line that sticks with me comes from the opening, which becomes a refrain: “One cannot understand life without understanding time.” At the end, we get that poignant, unexpected scene, with Ezeani informing us that “imaginary time divided by imaginary time is real time.” The novel has such intense focus on time. Could you share your process? At what point did you decide on this interweaving of time? Do you start chronologically and then return to thread in successive pasts and layer the story?

I.O.: Yes, you are right, at the heart of the novel is our relationship with time and a questioning of our everyday assumptions of its linear flow. It was important for me to reflect this fluidity in the structure of the novel moving from past to future and back, but in a way that makes sense, positioning the reader in a sort of perpetual present. And this approach, hopefully, brings the reader to an intimate understanding of an approach to time which draws from modern physics and the Igbo traditional worldview, and is necessary to fully understanding Ezeani.

In relation to process, there was no question in my mind about the necessity of interweaving time past and time future in a linear structure. I feel that in many ways I wrote this book in my head before I set a single word on paper. And so, when I finally sat down to write all the big choices had already been made.

Uka: The voice and language here are riveting. On the surface, the novel seems written in English. But soon it becomes clear to a native speaker that this is Igbo language and that the English language is merely a vehicle—which recalls Achebe’s seminal speech about the wonders one could do with language. Some write first in their language because translating to English and do so to preserve certain nuances that ordinarily would have been flattened by the English language. Did you write the novel first in Igbo before translating to English? Do you think in Igbo while writing? What’s your process like?

I.O.: As you may have guessed, Achebe is a literary hero of mine. The novel was written entirely in English but with attention to what language the character or narrator is speaking. And when this is Igbo, the English tone and cadence is bent and “colonized” to that purpose. The general reader hopefully gets a sense of the literary and rhetorical majesty of that language; and I am gratified that a native speaker picked up on this cadence.

Uka: Another fascinating element here is with the way you braid in historical and cultural events, while still maintaining an emotional and intimate core. These threads work in tandem, with none overpowering the other. How do you approach these subplots in your writing? Do you start first with cultural events first, or history, or your character’s emotional engine? Do you do it all together?

I.O.: The characters come first. The cultural and historical events serve the dual purpose of driving plot and, perhaps more importantly, anchoring the story within a world the reader knows. So, these events are subordinate and called upon by the demands of the character’s journeys. Through Ezeani’s unique eyes we can look at the familiar world with a new gaze. 

Uka: The novel seems to make a statement about memory. Ezeani remembers the events from when he was three years old and with such vividness, even from beyond. He would start with “I remember,” and then include concrete details that, if the reader hadn’t been preempted about his unusualness and the forces underpinning his life, they would have questioned the possibility of one remembering events from when they were a toddler. And as if to make it clear that it isn’t the author speaking through the mouth of the narrator, we have moments when Ezeani would say something along the lines of time stopping for him when he sleeps, his world only coming alive again when he wakes up. His notion of relative motion. Details that feel true to, and in the language of, his character. Could you talk a little bit about these choices?

I.O.: Well, you are correct about the importance of memory in the novel. The exploration of memory is of course intertwined for all of us with the passage of time; we only remember what happened in the past. And the novel meditates on the connection of these ideas to our sense of personhood. 

Now, this isn’t a new theme in literature. The idea has been explored in books as diverse as Beloved, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Sound and the Fury and of course In Search of Lost Time. And it is, in a sense, a central idea in One Hundred Years of Solitude. I hope that The Comfort of Distant Stars treats this theme in an important and unique way.

Uka: I think the novel would have had a different tone had it been written in any other point of view. In my recent conversation with NoViolet Bulawayo, she shared that the early drafts of We Need New Names were in third person and she had to rewrite in the voice of the child, Darling, which was daunting but later beneficial. I have done so too, many times rewriting a piece until a distinct voice comes through. What was it like with The Comfort of Distant Stars? Did the first-person perspective come naturally?

I.O.: Yes, it came naturally to me. I never really considered any other point of view. I felt the story could only be told through Ezeani’s eyes, speaking with conviction the things that were true to him. The first thing that I wrote, which did not end up in the finished novel, was a prologue in which Ezeani’s distinct voice was unmistakable. And the task as I proceeded with the novel was to carry this bright yet plaintive voice through.

Uka: The novel also pays homage to the Igbo oral tradition. Ezeani, while dramatizing these pivotal events, narrates them as one would find of an Igbo elder recalling events from time past in oratorical form. I think that while the novel maintains a dramatic question at its heart and does have the inciting incident and rising action and its poignant end, it also tells us a story in a way that honors our oratorical traditions. Could you talk a bit about how you arrived at this choice that doesn’t prioritize the “show, don’t tell” orthodoxy?

I.O.: I think my framing starts with language and with an appreciation of a deep and extensive oral literary tradition in Igbo. And I think the sound and cadence of the language just carries this through into English. And it is my fond hope that writing in this way brings again, as Achebe, I believe has done, something of the power of this literary and story-telling tradition to the world.  

Uka: This brings me to the question of genre. Works with elements such as ontology and divination systems are often characterized as magical realism. Magical realism suggests a remove from reality, which the Igbo will argue reduces our belief systems to a sub-category, because rarely are works that interrogate a person’s relationship and interaction with the Christian God categorized as the fantastical, magical realism.

And some readers could include The Comfort of Distant Stars in that category, citing, for example, Ezeani’s relationship with Anyanwu. There’s that hilarious moment when he tells Anyanwu, “You are a God; why are you on the streets like a vagrant, asking strangers for money?” Or that explosive moment at the end of time. And I find it intriguing that you chose “God” in reference to Anyanwu and not “god.” The norm would have been to refer only to the Christian deity as “God.” So, this also becomes a question of power. Which is God and which is god.

Your choice makes a statement. Could you talk a bit about it and what you think of genre categorizations?

I.O.: You are right about genre, and what is categorized as magic realism. I suspect that these categories, while perhaps useful as broad marketing terms, do not tell us very much about what a book does and how it does it. And to follow on your specific example on books with Christian themes, what categorization other than “magic realism” describes a novel such as Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

On the issue of “Gods” with a capital G, funny enough I had a conversation at lunch today about this idea. My view is that there is nothing in Christianity, its worship, belief and practice that you can’t map to other belief systems, including African religions.  We have just privileged European Christianity. And the capitalization of the word God in the case of this particular religion is illustrative of this. Religion, in addition to being deeply personal, is also a social construct. And the use of capitalization in the service of hierarchy seems to me an idea that I should reject, and perhaps more importantly, is one the characters in the novel wouldn’t even consider. A true believer in Igbo traditional religion, and certainly Anyanwu, cannot countenance it.

And it is important to acknowledge how deep this indoctrination goes. It pervades our culture and has done so for decades. Christianity is an African religion now, as well. And I don’t mean the Ethiopian version but the post-colonial Nigerian versions. So, an overwhelming percentage of present-day Igbos are Christians, many of whom harbour an adopted disdain for traditional Igbo religious beliefs.

Uka: There’s a moment in the novel that stays with me, the first time we see Ezeani cry, after his beloved teacher, Mr. Iredua, accuses him of plagiarism. That comment shakes up Ezeani, introducing a reed of self-doubt that trails into adulthood. This reed is great; it muddies himself, establishes him as fallible too. You characterized everyone in his orbit the same, introducing elements that make them feel real, dimensional. Literary fiction, all genres really, succeed or die by characterization.

Which brings me to my next question: how did you map your characters and their traits? Do you let them reveal themselves along the way, or do you have an initial, clear picture of who they are, as such framing their actions or inactions around those traits?

I.O.: I agree with you on the importance of character. I think that with the main characters I had a sense of what these strengths and flaws would be and how they would develop as they interact and the novel developed. But in the writing process, the characters threw some surprises at me. There is one that when it came to me was so wicked, and yet mischievously delicious that my first reaction was “No! You can’t.” But it soon became clear to me that the character was right; this was what he would do. This was what the story required.

Uka: Considering your process, what has surprised you the most about your writing?

I.O.: The thing that has surprised me most? Well, perhaps, the ruthlessness with which I have approached the work and the great joy I derive from writing. It seems those two things should not go together but when I am writing, magically, they do.

Uka: Who are some of your greatest influences and who do you think we should be reading now?

I.O.: Obviously, I am an Achebe fan. My influences are really varied but they include Soyinka, Marquez, Morrison, Faulkner and Hemingway. I make it a practice to ask writers and avid readers for recommendations; books they really love. Recently this led me to the novel Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. It is a wonderful book. Everyone should read it.

You can find out more about the novel here.

*Feature photo of Echeruo Ike by Indira Echeruo