On writing The Road to the Salt Sea
Since the 1990s, military dictatorships, poverty, corruption, famine and violence have pushed many sub-Saharan Africans to look for a better life in Europe and America; continents widely perceived to be safe and prosperous. The motive is often the same, irrespective of how migrants sojourn to foreign lands—the quest for success, freedom, expression and survival.
I left my home country six years ago even though I would regard my exile as self-imposed. My move to the state of Vermont was the first step in my plans to pursue my dreams of teaching and publishing in the United States. As a writer, I want to advance narratives with deep roots in African culture and realities with a post-colonial focus. Through my writing, I hope to give a voice to the oppressed and illuminate the dark paths by telling our stories with honesty and conviction.
As a child, I wanted to be many things when I grew up. However, I never considered being a writer, although I was always an avid reader and I often made up stories in my head. I didn’t even know someone could be a writer in Nigeria in any serious sense because writing was not seen as a viable profession. I thought of being an astronaut, a boxer, a preacher, a Hollywood actor/producer, a soldier in the US Army, even a covert CIA agent. I never made anything out of them. At some point, I became engrossed with the desire to become a surgeon, and went as far as studying for medical school. But the desire to write would soon overtake my dream of practicing medicine.
In my late teens, I was plagued by a debilitating bout of depression and I desired no other company than that of books. This time of isolation helped me come to terms with who I was. It was during that time that I knew I wanted to write. After that, I couldn’t do anything else. I had found my calling.
My decision to pursue my dreams did not come without consequences. I was labelled the black sheep of the family for daring to veer off the prescribed path to success. For many years, I was maligned, left to fend for myself, sometimes without a roof over my head. I pressed on despite all odds. I wrote and sent work out, launching my career as a writer.
When I became concerned about the lack of educational opportunities for aspiring writers in a country and indeed a continent abounding with so many literary talents, I founded Writers Studio, the first of its kind in Africa. We were able to hold regular writing workshops in ten African countries. Facilitated by acclaimed writers and teachers, and fueled by peer critique, the workshops were designed to help participants assess their own work objectively while working on issues of craft. The organization subsequently went on hiatus for lack of funding.
In 2015, I came to the distressing realization that I would likely never maximize my full potential in Nigeria as a writer. There was a time when living in Nigeria was what I needed as a writer. The water, the air, the noise, and the experiences I inhaled nurtured creativity within me. Living in Nigeria made me the writer that I am today and even now the umbilical tie to my motherland is still very much intact.
For me, home is not only a place of life trajectories, experiences, and relationships, but also a place where you are free. Home is where you are encouraged to wander into the realm of possibilities, where your creativity finds the space required to flourish, and your work is celebrated and rewarded.
Some of the characters in my novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, are searching for their new home, where that realm of possibilities might exist, wherever that place may be. My protagonist, Able God Onobele, an engineering graduate working as a dutiful employee at a four-star hotel, doesn’t plan on leaving Nigeria when we meet him. Able God longs for success despite his economic challenges, but when he is unexpectedly involved in a murder, he must flee and travel a dangerous path from Nigeria to Libya, crossing the deadly Sahara Desert, where militias and human traffickers rule the road. Sanctuary always seems to wait ahead, but too often it’s only a mirage. Dire circumstances and the ruthless and desperate people he encounters along the way force him to question everything he thinks he knows about himself and the world around him.
Three weeks ago, as I was completing final edits of this novel, I received disturbing news about an old high school friend. A “Christian organization” had recently convinced her to move to the United Arab Emirates with the promise of a job. Instead, she was trafficked to the Kingdom of Oman, where she is now enslaved and forced to work without pay. As I hurried to contact a friend who worked as an engineer in the oil fields in Oman for help and to get the Nigerian embassy involved in the case, I could not but ponder on the sad coincidence of it all. This heartbreaking news further reinforced why I wrote this novel and why I think this story is urgent and important, albeit in an unfortunate way. Hopefully, my novel will shed light on the underreported crisis of trans-Saharan migration and provoke a larger conversation about migration in the United States and beyond.
The Road to the Salt Sea is a novel for those who no longer have a place to call home and for anyone who has ever dared to dream of a better life.
Warm regards,
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé
