In this August edition, I had a chat with the multi-talented Makhago Peter, whose story, the millionaire orpahan won the 2021 Wakini Kuria prize for Children’s literature. Join me as I have a chat with this son of Uganda. – PPBlessing
PPBlessing: Let’s begin with why you write.
MP: I read and so decided to revenge. I come from a family of readers. When one of us at home got a book, it would be shared according to age until everyone had read it. My starting point was basically one evening in the village, I had finished senior six and I thought I would lose my mind if I didn’t do something with my time. I felt writing would be a good one for me so I got an exercise book and began. I still have that manuscript gathering moss on my laptop.
PPBlessing: Why haven’t you published it?
MP: The rejections come in thick and thin. You know how you begin with all the excitement and even celebrate when you make your first submission. Then after some time, it seems you are sending your work into a black hole. You reach a point and ask yourself, “Am I really meant for this?” In all submissions I ever made, only one publishing house ever sent me their review. Then you are caught with the demands of life and as you get older, they keep piling up until one day you remember, you wrote at some point in your life.
PPBlessing: Does this mean you have no published work aside from the millionaire orphan which won you the Wakini Kuria prize for Children’s literature? And are you saying you no longer write?
MP: Yes, that is my only published work. I am still polishing some of the manuscripts I wrote back then.
I do write. I write in phases. Trying to balance it with everything else. Sometimes, I get caught up in something different and find it too overwhelming to write. But I have also done some technical writing for a European company. So, I can console myself that I am still writing.
PPBlessing: What’s your revenge strategy?
MP: I was in the village most of my childhood. I don’t know if you can see somebody in a house at night with a candle trying to finish a book. I was like, it would also be good revenge to make some other person stay late in the night reading what I wrote. That is some good revenge.
PPBlessing: Indeed, it is. Any publishing plans on ground?
MP: Yes, I am still working on that story I started in my village. After I am done, I want to submit it to a firm that does critique and editing services. The people I had to get in touch with in the country quoted prices that scared me. I didn’t know writing was that expensive.
PPBlessing: Since publishing with a publishing house seems expensive, have you considered self-publishing?
MP: I haven’t.
PPBlessing: What occupation are you in?
MP: I work for an NGO in Kampala called Children At Risk Action Network. I began as an IT skills Teacher but moved to an IT technician doing repair which I have always loved. I had been teaching computer studies in Pallisa and I led my school in winning the ACIA awards in the raising stars category. These were organized back then by UCC (Uganda Communication Communication). It opened for me a door to move to Kampala. What can I say, some opportunities appear once in a lifetime. It changed everything.
PPBlessing: True, some opportunities are really once in a lifetime. How has being one of the winners of the Wakini Kuria prize for Children’s literature been for you?
MP: Shocking. You know I saw the advert on Facebook one day and I was like those lepers of Israel in the Bible who were at the gate starving during the war who said ‘if we remain here, we shall die and if we go who knows?’ I said I lose nothing if I send so I pulled up the story, edited it quickly and submitted it. I didn’t know it would turn out the way it did. It has also encouraged me to pull up those stories of old and once in a while, do some edits. It opened my eyes that well, somebody out there enjoyed what I wrote and am like; a perfect revenge indeed. There is something I have never forgotten in my primary days. When I was in primary seven, our math teacher came to teach us in the evening. I had just borrowed ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ from the library and didn’t want any interruption. I used to sit in the back and I was reading it at my desk. You can guess that I hated mathematics. Little did I know he was seeing me. He sent me out. He didn’t know he had made it easier for me to finish reading the book.
PPBlessing: Congratulations once again. What other genres do you write aside from children’s Literature?
MP: Thank you. I am trying to get to teenage readers. I have some thrillers I am working on. Something I have always loved reading. I like the excitement, the diversions, and the confusion. I have always been imaginative even when younger. When mom would tell us folk tales in the village in the kitchen, we would brave the smoke. Many times, when she was telling the stories, I would see the characters on the walls of the kitchen in that flickering light. I like when a story transports you to a different world and you see, feel and touch something. It’s a feeling so hard to describe.
PPBlessing: Who are your favourite authors and why?
MP: I read so much in my younger years. Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kiplings, so many, Tom Swift’s books and Enid Blyton’s. Those made me think every cave had gold ingots. It was when I was older that I discovered African writers. Chinua Achebe hits you differently. He must have drunk from some oral pot. Goodness, his writing style is something I would find on a grandfather’s lips in my village. No wonder, people complain about how we don’t read a lot, we just like to cook, steam, and fry our words. Our African ears like to eat more of the words than our eyes. I just like a well-written story. No favourites for me. Each Author whose book I have read and liked has room in me for their work.
PPBlessing: Has working in an NGO focused on Children had any impact on your writing?
MP: When I think about it, I have always liked children’s stories. I really want to motivate a child to do something smarter and also about their welfare, and their world. And it also works for me because they are often short and not overly complicated. I have a short attention span generally.
PPBlessing: What did you write on when you first started writing and what do you write on now?
MP: Ah, wanted those children’s investigation stories. The effect of Enid Blyton’s stories, pirates and whatnots. And those Moses in trouble series by Barbara Kimenye. I don’t know who didn’t like those stories. I re-read those books like crazy. Eh, I really had an adventurous childhood. In secondary school, our English teacher told us to write poems. I got an Okot P’Obitek poem and mutilated it with my ideas. He was able to know and warned me about plagiarism but eh, I liked what I had written and laughed. Those small steps, made me think about trying more and more writing.
PPBlessing: Every child that read those did like them and indeed writing what you like is amazing but plagiarism is something serious too.
MP: It’s not that I was going to send it somewhere for publishing. Just getting something already built, deconstructing it and adding in more bricks and cement, and seeing what will come out of it.
PPBlessing: Understood. If you weren’t so involved with being a technician, would you have considered a full-time writing career?
MP: Being a technician, makes sure there is food on the table and also ensures I can write with peace of mind. Writing doesn’t pay. So, I think they complement each other. I really respect writers who go in the whole way but I am too scattered-minded and can’t do a single thing. Right now, I am in a studio recording a song. I still have that leper’s attitude, what do I lose? But my singing is a hush-hush since I run from home and my family doesn’t know am here.
PPBlessing: A multi-talented writer! That’s beautiful. Aside from being a writer, technician and musician. What else do you do?
MP: Ah, if making noise on social media counts then I would add that. Our country has been sliding backwards. The word is met with bullets and threats. It’s all about one man who has decided he knows anything and everything. This is impossible but he is not interested in anybody who says the opposite. The few remaining places are the internet, for example, that they are targeting but we are much more than them. They say being Ugandan is a full-time job and that’s where I am. We are stuck somewhere, something like a loop. An oppressive environment may make us creative but on the other hand, it stifles and you can’t know what you could have achieved if you were given the freedom to fly.
PPBlessing: True. In your years of writing, what do you think is important for every writer?
MP: Write down the idea. Record the idea. I would have said consistency but it’s a rule I often break. So how can I force others to carry what I can’t. Additionally, knowing the period you’re in. There are times when the ideas are many, like you have a creativity overload and there are times when you are dry. You have to learn how to feed one into the other.
PPBlessing: Thank you. If you had the opportunity to publish all your manuscripts, how many books would they be?
MP: I have two manuscripts I can be sure of. I have short stories for adults, and some poems I have written. Honestly, I have never counted them. When the ideas come, I write them down, polish them, save them, forget about them, and then I pull them up to do some more editing. I have never been to any school or training on writing. I just do it for revenge. If I remember well, I would have performed better in my exams but I would spend time writing thinking I would make it at the time. Little did I know, patience is the name of the game when it comes to writing.
PPBlessing: Well done. May the fire of writing keep burning. What is your greatest achievement as a writer?
MP: Really? The prize. The prize. The prize.
Thank you for reading through this interview. Join us again next month, for yet another interesting chat with another child of Africa.
Read – Clara Wanjira Karuiki – Winner of the 2021 African Writers Award in Poetry
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