by Odongo POD
One of the genres of literature that interest me most is life writing, which includes such sub-genres as autobiography, memoir, biography, diary, and journal. I’m always fascinated by this genre or any writing, creative or critical, whose subject is personal experiences. The style and time in which such narratives are written are as significant as the experiences narrated in the texts. Indeed, the style and time of narration inform the interpretation and appreciation of the narratives. Joyce Nyairo challenges us to abandon the ‘beaten track’ and adapt ‘new ways’, or style if you will, of telling our life narratives. In her reading of To Chase a Dream in Nairobi, the autobiography of Kimathi Kaumbutho, Nyairo makes the case that we should begin writing our life stories at an early stage in life. As the cultural analyst notes, Kaumbutho has written his autobiography at the sunny age of 25 years. I wish to reflect on the proposition for writing our life stories in stages and especially developing the habit while we’re still young. There are several reasons one should consider penning their narratives at various stages of life. Let us consider a few of those reasons.
Personal stories function to trace, present and preserve the histories and stories of a people. The subjects of such life stories are persons who have lived or continue to live among a community of others. In a substantial way, therefore, life stories contribute to a national archive from which one can pick out leads on the trajectory of a people, nation or state. This task is even better served when there is proliferation of personal stories from people of different ages. It is useful to document and preserve the different ways in which different ages interpret and relate with the same events in their shared environment. The intrinsic value of telling one’s story cannot be gainsaid. It is rewarding, both to the writer and the reader, to engage with one’s personal story. What’s more, the tenet of universality of literature lies, in part, in the fact that a person in one corner of the world can relate to a story from another person in another corner of the world. The ability to relate to such stories is only made more intense, I think, in instances where the story is a personal one and not just fictional. This is not to denigrate the status and positioning of fiction in the literary atlas. The artistry that makes fiction possible is simply fulfilling.
We should consider writing our life stories in bits and blocks when the narrated events and experiences are still fresh in our memories. Sharing your life experiences especially while still young provides you with the opportunity to impact your contemporaries or other younger people. Telling your life story in blocks of various stages is also good for your personal development and reflection, both at the material time of writing and at a later time of more intense introspection. Such style of writing also provides the reader with an opportunity to sketch the contours of your growth as a person and subject of the narratives. At the family level, your children would benefit more from reading the story of your teenage tribulations and triumphs written about at 27 than if you waited to narrate to them the same in your 60s. Moreover, you’re sure to reap the fruits of self-criticism when you sit under a mango tree in your 80s reading your childhood story written in your 30s. These advantages should motivate young people to write their life stories on the go, instead of waiting until the vagaries of life have drained all your energy.
Let me share with you my personal experience of the value of writing life narratives while still young. I was struck when I recently came across a piece in which I narrate my academic life in primary and secondary schools. I wrote the piece about ten years ago during an undergraduate writing workshop. When I read the piece recently, I was particularly elated at my level of honesty in telling the major episodes of that part of my life. Still, I noted certain instances where I wasn’t fully forthcoming. But this is more attributable to the limited time I had in putting together the piece; I did not have the opportunity to check the veracity of my memory with other sources, both human and material. Yet still, I identified instances where I should have said something in a better way to make the story more readable. For example, I noted about five poorly constructed sentences and other instances where the work could have benefitted from more editing and proofreading. Surprisingly, there are instances where I was more grounded in the use of some punctuation marks than I would think possible at the time. Talk of learning, unlearning and re-learning. My discovery of this piece has renewed my impetus to seriously consider writing my memoirs thus far. I’m already in the process of expanding the narrative to include other aspects of my journey for the initial three decades. I hope it will be a worthwhile read.
The availability of more life narratives by young people will encourage even more young people to pen their narratives. Published narratives will act as pathfinder torches for other young authors. To further illustrate this point, I wish to mention two young people in the same league as Kimathi Kaumbutho: Oyoo Mboya of Maiden Melodies and Mokaya Omweri of Stubborn Determination. The subtitle of Omweri’s memoirs, Reflections of a Village Boy at Thirty, buttresses the point that one does not have to wait for old age to have reflections worth sharing. Although Oyoo’s book may not strictly qualify to be included in the life writing genre, the anthology of poetry and personal musings will strike you at the heart and leave you wounded—if you survive the intensity and tenacity of its melodies. The reason I include Maiden Melodies here is that the pains, pauses and pleasures it inscribes are so personal that to detach them from the person of the author is to erroneously curve the arc of imagination. Oyoo may not necessarily have been personally involved in some of the written pieces, but he certainly experienced the represented events and reflections through observation, listening, reading, or imagination. In any case, as other literary critics have argued, all writing is autobiographical. The youth should write and share their life stories even if there’s a dearth (or death) of ‘mainstream’ publishing and marketing opportunities. We should be less bothered by a lack of interest and support from what Nyairo calls ‘offline bookshops’. Whether bookshops are ‘offline’ or ‘online’, we should document and share our personal stories.
Inasmuch as writing one’s life story involves self-introspection and interpretation, a life episode at 21 written about at 29 may have less embellishments hence more authentic than if the same were narrated five decades after its occurrence. Which reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend in 2018 in which he relived his college love life. One of the things that have remained with me, especially because it goes to the core of the craft of life writing, was his reflection on what he then considered to constitute love vis-à-vis his current views. With the advantage of age, exposure and hindsight, he confessed that some of the things they thought constitute love are actually in the class of debauchery. It’s likely that his views and interpretation of life—particularly of this and similar incidents in his early life—might change when he hits 70 years, which is the time he hopes to write his memoirs. What value would his current appreciation and interpretation of such life experiences have for younger and other readers than what his rendition of the same experiences might produce in his 70s?
Though one’s worldview ripens with time, the interpretive eyes and mind one has in their youth are not inferior or less significant. We should not wait until we are old to begin churning out our life stories in, say, chunks of one or two decades. Which would somehow come out as a way of trying to profit off your octogenarian feat—as if you even have another batch of a similar number of years to drink from the sweat of your words. Here, the memoirs of Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Wole Soyinka readily come to mind. What Ngugi remembers in Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir and what Soyinka writes in Ake: The Years of Childhood are more influenced by the circumstances and interpretive minds of their writing selves than by their childhood worldviews. Such childhood narratives written in old age might be more significant in the study of writing as art than in relating to the immediacy of the narrated experiences.
On the motivational and self-help literature front, life stories of the youth who have since become adults and parents may give hope to a young person who is almost giving up on life. Such a story can function to show the youth that whatever success and comfort the writer is ‘enjoying’ in old age did come through a plethora of false starts and failures, and that had the writer chosen the easy path, even the story itself would not have been birthed. In fact, such personal stories have more inspirational value than outright motivational books. But what constitutes success, both in terms of social life and what can be gleaned from a personal story? And what is the measure of such success? Should a life story be shared only for the measure of success of the author or of the writing? Or do lived experiences in and of themselves offer worthy lessons, even if not all can be emulated?
Odongo is a consultant editor and practising writer.
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