The angolan poet, writer and storyteller Ondjacki addresses one of his prose works "Avódezanove and the secret of the Soviet."
Your literature includes various styles from poetry, prose and children's literature. How comes a project?
Ondjacki: I do not have a plan, I cannot say what will happen in two or three years, I hope to continue writing short stories, writing for children, but it is a desire is not a certainty.
So how it all happens?
O: I hope a little, the idea appears and disappears if it is bad, it is consistent stays, sometimes you have to convince the ideas to be something. It is even expected, is a lot of work, but there are also lucky breaks in order to reach a good idea, as visitations like my grandmother say is necessary to be well visited, then we take the opportunity. The literutura does miracles, the Church promises, but now I know if they do, writing is about human behavior, we will touching more or less people, if it was good that touches the politicians would be good, if it is not so good literature is not worth it.
When I started reading this book came to me the idea that this story could be real.
Ondjacki: The story is real, all. There is a part that is fiction, children do not blew up the mausoleum, is still there, it is a monument and it's a huge thing. I never went there, because when I opened was not in Angola. The characters are real, the beach of Bishop is there, we had this relationship with the works of these local and the grandmother is my mother's mother and Catherine grandmother is the sister who also existed, I do not know where she is.
Som you adapted their personalities to your story?
O: No, they are who they are. I am not the child who tells the story, could have been, I say that I am one of the grandchildren of Nineteen grandmother, but I do not consider myself the narrator's, everyone else is there, Charlita, the neighbors, all this is real.
So what attracted you to this story?
O: I think it could be literary, not just a life story. Here is counted and assembled to be a book and not just what I remember what my grandmother used to say, would be meaningless. Sometimes it takes this together in order to create a thread and turned a little book, like in book form, because if I told those stories separately was a coffee conversation.
It would be possible to translate in tales?
O: I could be, I could take that Bishop Beach universe and pick up every one of those stories. It was to be a short story, but I could not stop and turned into a book, then entered the Agneta grandmother, Catherine grandmother and I started thinking about Cuba, the Soviet and was growing.
This book is also a reflection of an African culture that makes much of the woman figure.
O: Yes, but I do not know if it is African, because Africa is too large, for example, as in Morocco, or Madagascasr but in Angola, Mozambique and even in South Africa the figure of the woman not only socially and familiarly is an extremely important figure, not to say the grandmother, is a surreal dimension, I think without being intentionally this is reflected a bit in the book. See the countries that were at war and not only in Africa, even in the first war and the second war women played a very important role, are in the rear to take care of everything, not in the domestic sense, it is much higher than it is caring continuity, sometimes the husband, uncle, brother no longer returned, and it is obvious that from the point of view of humanity if not the woman had these fools who are the men and are all screwed.
Another aspect that I liked the book is that the narrator is a child, the story is told from his point of view and then there is this aspect of a certain naivety and dream, has all this side of childhood. You had to go back to your childhood to address this young narrator?
O: Yes and no. Here's an exercise that is very difficult for me and other people who are doing this recount, not only the voice, you need to tell a perspective, as it was spoken or seen, is to narrate an entire construction of children's thinking, I do not say it is achieved, but it is an attempt to honor this vision that in fact up to a certain age the world is different for us. When we grow, we spoil the fantasy part, not spoil completely, there are poets who can be have a childhood inside. This was my attempt, there is also that issue of ownership of the neighborhood, they react to a threat that is not personal, it is legal, that work will take away their neighborhood, ultimately to a child the street is their home. Their neighborhood is his world, not the country and they do not want to disappear.
It also has this aspect you focus a certain social fringe of your country.
O: Yes, I could not help it. It is a very specific time of the presence of the Cubans, the Russians, living with other people, the war, everything that happened there, in the city there were no consequences of the war, there were no combantes in Luanda, this generates in children, even in adults, but especially in children a carnival of ideas and ways of course. It is quite different for a person who did lived with Cuban teachers, who did not inhabited and saw Russians in their country doing work, it is another reality.
Your favorite character is nineteengrandmother?
O: No, nineteengrandmother is my favorite character in mine life, she will be one hundred and one years now on 12th of August, she is still alive. In this book I do not have a favorite, but the character who most surprised me is grandmother Catherine, when I started writing the book did not remember her, nor was meant to be included, she was coming and she was being imposed in history with a specific rhythm and people ask me if it was true, just ask my cousins, we have many discussions, some said she was dead, others said they had brunch with grandmother Catherine.
Nineteengrandmother read your book?
The: From one end to another no longer had patience. I wrote this book when she had 94 years, she is well, until it was the launch of the book in Luanda and was very beautiful.
