Hypertext Magazine asked Umar Turaki, author of Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold, “Language seems to be an important element in Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold. Could you tell us a bit more about that?”
By Umar Turaki
Language is a huge preoccupation for me as a writer, which might seem like a moot point, since the very tool of our trade is language. But it’s personal in that a lot of my experiences around language growing up were a bit fraught. I have a multilingual background, which is the case for almost anyone growing up in Nigeria. My father came from one language, my mother from another. In Northern Nigeria, we have a lingua franca that everyone speaks. So that’s a third language. And then there’s English, the official language. In this kind of setting, the question of language becomes one about patrimony and loyalty, and your identity is judged or assessed depending on how you answer this question.
Sooner or later, if you’re a writer and have more than one linguistic heritage, the question of language is going to rear its head in a big way. In my case, we lost my dad when I was still fairly young. So I didn’t get to grow up learning the language of his people. As I began to work on the first iterations of what became Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold, I wanted to engage in a more meaningful way with my roots. I’m not fluent in my mother’s language, Ngas, but it’s the one I’m most emotionally connected to. So I did the best I could with what I had: I made every proper noun, and many improper nouns, Ngas names and words. If I knew the name for it in Ngas, or if I could trace it, I would use the Ngas version rather than the English version. In some cases, I invented Ngas words to suit my purposes. I was reading the novel again recently and wished I had done more of this. This became for me a way of not only honouring my mother and everything she’s given me, but also creating a kind of mythologized Ngas story-world that channels my memories and affections of Ngas culture and landscapes in a heightened way. None of it is overt, but hopefully, it lends a layer of myth or fable to the story that dovetails with the speculative element that should not be named.
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Umar Turaki‘s writing has been shortlisted for the Miles Morland Scholarship, longlisted for the Short Story Day Africa Prize, and has won the AFREADA Photo-Story Competition. Umar’s short films have screened in numerous festivals, and his work in television both as a writer and director has been broadcast on various stations in Nigeria. Umar lives in Kelowna, British Columbia with his wife and daughter, where he is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at UBC Okanangan.