Chika Unigwe is from Osumenyi, Nnewi South LGA, Anambra State. She was born the sixth child of seven children and raised in Enugu, Nigeria.
She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and an MA from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She also holds a PhD from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, having completed a thesis entitled “In the shadow of Ala. Igbo women writing as an act of righting” in 2004.
Chika Unigwe is the author of fiction, poetry, articles and educational material. She won the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition for her story “Borrowed Smile”, a Commonwealth Short Story Award for “Weathered Smiles” and a Flemish literary prize for “De Smaak van Sneeuw”, her first short story written in Dutch. “The Secret”, another of her short pieces, was nominated for the 2004 Caine Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2005 Caine Prize for African Writing award. She was the recipient of a 2007 Unesco-Aschberg fellowship for creative writing, and of a 2009 Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for creative writing.
She has most recently, on November 1, 2012, won the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature and was longlisted for the 2012 Wole Soyinka Award.
Chika Unigwe’s stories have been broadcast on BBC World Service, Radio Nigeria, and other Nation Radio Stations.
Her first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch by Meulenhoff / Manteau in September 2005; it is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin. The story, set in Turnhout, explores themes such as grief, illness and loneliness, subjects already touched upon in Unigwe’s earlier work. By featuring a central character who shares the novelist’s Afro-European background, the narrative also exposes some shortcomings of Belgian society, like its pervasive unwelcoming atmosphere and the superficiality of many of its inhabitants.
Chika Unigwe published her second novel, On Black Sisters’ Street in 2009 (first released in Dutch under the title Fata Morgana), a tale of choices and displacement set against the backdrop of the Antwerp prostitution scene.
Her most recent novel is Night Dancer (Jonathan Cape, 2012)
She was a city councilor in her city of Turnhout for the CD&V from 2006 to 2009
She lives with her husband and four children in Turnhout, Belgium.
In an interview with Chike Nweke of Life and Times magazine, Chika talks about her life, her family and her goals for the future…
Q-Tell us a little bit about your family background…
A-I am from Osumenyi, Nnewi South LGA, Anambra State. I was born the sixth child of seven children and raised in Enugu, Nigeria. I have degrees from the University of Nigeria, the KU Leuven and a PhD from the University of Leiden. I am married with four children.
Q- How do you combine the demands of being a very busy writer with your role as wife and mother of four children?
A- I have tried to structure my day so that I am better able to navigate both worlds. The children have strict bedtimes so I can switch off at a certain time and concentrate on me.
I have a network of people who help me too when I need it. My parents-in-law babysit a lot for example.
I have two different cleaners come in twice a week for 4 hrs each to clean; I pay to have the ironing done, sometimes so that I am not overwhelmed by housework.
I also extend my day by waking up very early to write for a few hours (when the house is quiet, around 3 AM)
Q-How did you meet your husband and how supportive has he being to you as a writer?
I met him at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, I was a student he was working as a research assistant. He is very supportive.
Q-What long term goals do you want to accomplish in your writing career?
A-I want to write more books, better books
Q-Besides writing what are your other passions
Reading, scrabble, music
Q-You are young and still have very many years ahead of you but when your work is done, how would you like Chika Unigwe to be remembered?
A-As someone who did the best she could
Excerpts from Chika’s award winning novel: On a Black sister’s Street
Sisi was a dream maker in silver and gold. These were not clothes she ever would have picked out for herself, not even for this job. The blouse hugged her intimately, sequined in silver. A gold-colored nylon skirt that showed her butt cheeks when she bent. Sisi felt like asking for a longer skirt. She felt naked, silver and gold nude. Long gold-plated earrings dangled from her ears and rested on her shoulders, thin strings of a setting sun. And on her lips, the rich red of tomato purée.
Sisi walked in ahead of Madam to a surprisingly dark room. She had expected dazzling brightness. Lots of glitter and shine. Psyche delic balls of light. The café was dimly lit, and it took a few seconds for Sisi to get used to the dimness. It had a dark wooden interior, a wooden ceiling with blue, red, and orange spotlights arranged in the shape of a huge star that spanned the width of the room, with six other stars inside it, each one smaller in size than the one preceding it, like a matryoshka.
At first all Sisi saw was a cloud of smoke rising up to meet the lights. It was as if she had walked off the earth and stumbled into the clouds, with stars in every conceivable color.
***********
“Hello, beautiful.” The man in the striped shirt grinned at her, gesturing her to an empty chair beside him. “What’s your name?”
“Eh?” “Name? Your name?” He spoke into her ear. “Sisi.” Sisi sat down and tried to regain her smile. She stretched her lips
and parted them. Like a weak flame, the smile came, faltered, and died out. She was a woman sinking. Tears found their way to her eyes. She was not doing this because she liked it, she reminded herself. But she was here now, and there was no going back. She clenched her teeth and tried again to smile. Her lips, as if made out of straw, cracked, and the smile splintered. “See See? Beautiful name.” The man chuckled. “Beautiful name for beautiful lady. You want a drink? See See?” Sisi nodded. “Yes, a drink would be good. Something cold. Thank you.”
The man returned with two bottles of Stella Artois. “Come, we sit at a table. My name is Dieter,” he said as he picked up his glass and took a sip. desirable. “You don’t talk much, do you, See See?”
‘No.’ Sisi shook her head. She struggled to smile, but the splinters rejected her attempts to make them whole, to bring them back to life. They disintegrated like baby ghosts floating about the room and finally disappearing into the gloom.
“Your voice is beautiful. Like you,” Dieter told her, reaching across the table to touch her right cheek, his palm clammy. Sisi’s natural instinct was to shake it off, but in her new life common sense ruled over instinct, so she left it there. She tried to force herself to imagine that it was Peter’s palm, that she and Peter were married and had simply gone out for a drink. It did not work. Dieter’s hand slipped and moved to her neck. He ran his fingers down the outside of her neck, all the time muttering, “Beautiful. Beautiful.” His eyes bulged out, and shifting on his chair, he moved his hand to her breast, cup- ping each one in turn. I can’t do this, Sisi thought. She sat still, her glass of beer untouched before her, her heart heavy with a sadness that felt like rage. She could no longer make out which music was playing, as her ears were filled with the rush of a waterfall.
In a men’s toilet with lavender toilet paper littering the floor, soggy (with urine?), and a shiny black toilet seat, Dieter pulled his trousers down to his ankles. A flash of white boxers. A penis thundering against them. A massive pink knob. Sisi gawked. Everything she had heard about the white man’s flaccidity, his penis as small as a nose (so that the greatest insult she could heap on an annoying schoolmate was that he had the penis of a white man), was smashed. He heaved and moaned; one hand tore at his boxers and the other at Sisi’s skirt. His breath warm against her neck, his hands pawing every bit of her; he licked her neck.
Sisi shut her eyes. Raising his head, he stuck his tongue into her ear. In. Out. In. Out. Eyes shut still, she tried to wriggle out of his embrace. She did not want to do this any- more. “I don’t need this. Stop!” she said. He held her close. Pushed her against the wall, his hands cupping her buttocks, and buried his head in her breasts. “Stop,” she shouted again. Eyes open, she saw his face, his mouth open and his jaws distended by an inner hunger. “Stop!” His moans swallowed her voice. His penis searched for a gap between her legs. Finding a warmth, he sighed, spluttered sperm that trickled down her legs like mucus, inaugurating Sisi into her new profession. She baptized herself into it with tears, hot and livid, down her cheeks, salty in her mouth, feeling intense pain wherever he touched, as if he were searing her with a razor blade that had just come out of a fire. Her nose filled with the stench of the room, and the stench filled her body and turned her stomach, and she did not care whether or not she threw up. But she did not.
The revulsion stayed inside and expanded, and she felt a pain, a tingling, start in her toes. The pain that could not be contained began to spread out around her and rise, taking over everything else. Even the sound of her heartbeat.
