My friends are afraid of me – Ebi Akpeti

Author of God Has a Good Sense of Humour, Ebi Akpeti, speaks on her sources of inspiration at a reading in Lagos, AKEEM LASISI writes

She always has a surprise waiting for her friends in her books. Each time they read her, they usually find their names and stories enacted in the works.

As she did in her earlier publications Growing Pains, Castrtaed and The Perfect Church, so has Ebi Akpeti done in her latest book, God Has a Sense of Humour.

When she read from the collection of stories in Lagos last Saturday, her passion for feasting on the experiences of those close to her was one of the issues she was made to address. Very interesting, however, is the fact that those friends were and are happy with her. They appreciated the way she treated the stories in God Has a Sense of Humour, which, some of them noted, would do well if adapted into a film.

Of course, those who have keenly followed the writings of the writer that now works in the corporate department of Promasidor, Nigeria, would note that as she does to other people, so also she does to herself. In several parts, Akpeti’s books drip with defamiliarised stories of her life, at an earlier encounter. According to her, one of the hot spots for story ideas are the testimonies that members regularly give in churches. In other words, she is also a kind of literary church rat.

“My friends are afraid of me,” Akpeti said jovially at the reading held at Logobiri in Ikoyi. “They know that when they tell me stories, the stories would find their way into my books, and I even retain their names at times.”

Among the people at the event was seasoned broadcaster, Adesuwa Onyenokwe, who read a part of the work. According to Onyenokwe, the collection is a successful one because even a teenager who read it was able to appreciate Akpeti’s message to adult members of the society. The broadcaster wants her to adapt the stories into radio drama.

Another issue Akpeti had to address bordered on why almost her female characters are above 38 years of age. The suspicion is that the writer is also writing about herself, especially since most of the characters are singles.

Here, Akpeti had to overhaul her cart of wit to address the matter – or, at least, wriggle out of the suspicion. First, she noted that she was not yet 38. Second, not all of the characters are oldies. But as she explored in one of the stories titled Singlelaria – a play on ‘malaria’ – she stressed that being a perennially eligible single babe comes with a fever.

She said, “Most single ladies know what it is in Lagos.”

Why Akpeti thanked members of her family, friends, colleagues, editor and even one good Samaritan that gave her N150,000 to print her first book, she could not help remembering her late father, who she described as the first painstaking critic of her writings. It is thus not surprising that one of the stories in the collection is titled, ‘Death is no Longer a Rumour’.