By Ozioma Egwuonwu
Call a writer fortunate when they are able to delve into and work within a number of creative forms. Call them talented when they can do so, and in each one offer the reader a unique memorable experience. Poet, playwright, and novelist Kwame Dawes succeeds at both. He talks with writer Ozioma Egwuonwu about his novel She’s Gone, his never-ending love affair with reggae music and culture, and the overarching message that lies within his body of work.
Ozioma Egwuonwu: A lot of your poetic work stems from a preoccupation with theme and form, to what extent was that also true when you were approaching your debut novel She’s Gone?
Kwame Dawes: She’s Gone is a peculiar entity because it is a novel. It’s not the first novel that I’ve written– it’s the first novel to be published. Because of its novel form, it has certain demands and expectations that are distinct from poetry or a memoir. I did know that I was writing a romance novel as the premise, so I was trying to break certain types within the romance novel and trying to write a literary novel that had a romantic narrative. I am aware of the boxes that exist and I am trying to see how certain conventions can be broken and how certain conventions can be engaging and exciting to work in. So with She’s Gone, I am consciously aware of those elements.
My main question, however, is always, what is my engagement with this work in terms of my connection with reggae and the aesthetic, because reggae as an aesthetic is still a guiding factor for me. And so all of those elements come together in She’s Gone.
OE: So what sort of discoveries did you make during your endeavor to fall within, as well as transcend, the devises of the novel?
KD: The most telling discovery for me was the tyranny of the romance novel. The romance novel wants to have the same trajectory and wants to have a certain kind of ending, and I became aware of it as I was writing that this is where it wants to go. But I resisted it in many ways and sought to divert its direction. But I also discovered that I like the seduction of the romance narrative. I like the fact that it has a fascinating way of engaging us as readers, and I wanted to retain that somehow in the novel. So for me it was this wonderful sort of game of dancing back and forth around it, but I suspect that it eventually got lost in the sheer energy of telling the story. I mean once the story and the characters began to coalesce effectively, then those questions of genre went out of the window.
OE: And speaking of your characters, Kofi and Keisha, did you know up front that these would be the conduits to tell the story?
KD: Well, not really. Actually, Kofi just came to me, and I didn’t know what to do with Keisha. I think at points Keisha’s character was interesting to me, but I suspect that there were other characters that might have been the love interest. But eventually it became apparent to me that Keisha was going to be the person. Once they came together as the characters, the rest was really straightforward.
OE: Did you struggle over any piece of the telling?
KD: Well, not really. I’m an established poet; I don’t have really anything to prove. I am actually having an affair with fiction. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll just go back to “my wife.” So there was no pressure on me to make this work except the fact that I was spending a lot of time doing this with the thought that I could be doing something else. I had Katie Blount, a wonderful editor who knew the story better than I did, so she could say “no you said this already.” This was wonderfully helpful to me.
OE: So at what point did Akashic Books get involved?
KD: Akashic Books approached me and asked if I had any fiction [and] that they’d love to work with me and so on; I said “yeah I do.” [I sent my work], and much to my amazement Johnny Temple (the publisher) read the whole thing and liked it. [He] said, “I think I know the perfect editor for you.” Akashic has this wonderful thing that they do where they match freelance editors with the writers. It’s a brilliant thing to do because the editors are tailor-made for the writer. So for about eight months my editor and I worked on the novel.
OE: And how did you handle your first review?
KD: Not well (laughs) because it wasn’t a very good one. I, in fact, wrote a note to the reviewer because she was bothered by the fact that she didn’t think the two main characters should have gotten together. It became apparent to me that she was quarreling with my characters and not with my book. People were looking for the joy and romance and I ended with a guy who has mental problems. [The characters] are dysfunctional, but who isn’t? Most relationships are never romantic in that complete sense of perfect people getting together.
OE: But that’s what I found refreshing about the book. It took a very realistic approach and showed that this is how people really live, and these are things that really happen. The characters are very real and they communicate with each other in a very real way.
KD: Well maybe you should have been the one to write my review!
OE: I noticed that the common link that ties the majority of your work together is reggae. I’m just wondering why you choose reggae in particular as the wellspring for much of your work?
KD: Because I walked into reggae. I got to Jamaica in 1971 at eight years old. 1970 was a huge year. It was at the beginning of the explosion of roots reggae that would continue throughout the 70s. This music was in the air and it was exciting. I was learning Jamaica and Jamaican music at the same time because I was a foreigner. Its relationship with Rastafarianism had a special meaning for me because of their openness to Africa and African sensibilities. Rastas were the first ones to embrace me and want to talk with me, and that meant a great deal to me. This music was rooted and central to the shaping of my sexuality and the soundtrack for my life. I am grateful for that because I believe it is a rich tradition of music that is loaded with historical, political and social truths. I don’t think I would be the writer that I am without reggae music.
OE: In a quote you mention how at a young age you felt that you were “seeing right before your eyes how the world was desperate for a chronicler—someone who could bring forth fresh insight and literary intelligence to reality…” Have you grown in this role? Is it still your mission?
KD: Oh it’s always been the mission. I think it will continue to be the mission because it’s a mission that is a gift. One of the things I find when I teach writing students is that they struggle with why they are writing in the first place. So they struggle with having something to say–having something to represent. They feel as if they are writing for themselves and they find that the gravitas of what they are trying to say is absent from them. They don’t feel as if they are charting new paths; they feel that so much has been said already, so they feel that they have to rely on the minutiae of their own experience to give them a grounding for it.
The truth of it is not as obvious as it would have been to me. Because I was living in Jamaica at the time I was, it gives me some stories to tell that have not yet been told. In other words, I can see that I am doing something afresh, something completely new, which in and of itself does not make for great writing, but it gives you the energy and the drive to pursue the writing, and hopefully it will eventually [become great writing] by the quality of the work and the craft.
The drive and the purposefulness of being a writer–one of the gifts of having engaged this idea that I was going to chronicle my time and my world–is that it gives me a drive to continue to write and continue to generate work. And that I regard as a gift.
OE: So when thinking of your body of work to date, what is something that you would want your readers to come away with?
KD: It would be redemption. That sense of gratitude for feeling redeemed. That sense of redemption that is not earned. I want my work to reflect what I believe about myself—that I am a flawed human being; that there is something called grace that has given me the capacity to heal the sublime and to feel redeemed somehow despite my own flaws. There is beauty in that redemption and it’s a gift, purely a gift. In fact, that is what I want all my work to reflect, that there is the flawed that some might call the broken mirror that looks at the broken world. But for me there is also the grace that is not deserved but still comes and allows you to find beauty and joy in the midst of all of that. If there is anything that I want people to leave with, it’s that sense of hope.