No
more Silent Whispers, let’s talk about Evans Munyemesha himself.
Who is Evans Munyemesha?
Well,
Evans Munyemesha is very much elusive to me as he is to
anybody that tries to know more about him. From some reports
that I have seen from all over the world, it’s known that
Mr. Evans Munyemesha, at 30, is essentially a young man with a
Franciscan nun attitude and one big charming smile, not
forgetting hair on his toes; but beware that he could be as
brutal as a serial writer given a pen and scraps of paper.
Born
and raised in Luanshya, Zambia, I understand Mr. Evans
Munyemesha nurtured his ambitions through institutions such as
Mpelembe Primary School, Luanshya; Luanshya Boys Secondary
School, Luanshya; Hillcrest Technical Secondary School,
Livingstone; and Mpelembe Secondary School, Kitwe. As a
college graduate from SDSM&T, I hear that Evans
Munyemesha juggles his time between a satisfying
technical career and consuming volumes of
literature which help him create fantasies of
his own in his writing career.
His challenging childhood
is the backdrop he uses to ease tension in his life while
at the same time motivating himself more than ever to
build a career as a writer.
What
first compelled you to write the book, Silent Whispers?
Silent
Whispers was a product of my desire to validate myself and my
ability to write. The spirit-character in the book
evolved from my brief companionship with the movement for
feminism while the main character was painted from my beliefs
about love, companionship, truth, freedom, and to a certain
extent justice. I laced the theme of the story with
biotechnology by tinkering with cloning.
What
did you enjoy the most when writing Silent Whispers?
Writing
is principally full of moments of painful contemplation,
self-doubt, solitude and frustration. But anybody that feels
the urge to put thoughts in writing should believe in
their ability to write, and in transforming the dark
clouds of solitude and frustration into quality time with
oneself, translating the inner convictions into word.
When I started writing the story, I was always
striving to find ways of purpose for my work and
interpreting the world in a manner that was not
available to me elsewhere. The act of writing allowed me
to be in control of the events, it gave me for once the chance
to guide the feelings, emotions, reactions, etc. of the people
that I was creating. I was at peace with myself every
time I stepped out of this world and entered the world of
fiction where I held the key to the door that guided the
storyline of Silent Whispers. The journey was long and lonely,
yet enormously fulfilling.
What
do you find most challenging about your writing?
Trying
to add realism to the story and personality to the characters
is always challenging. Readers want to read something that
reflects their life's experiences, something that can be
believed. Unless of course you are writing about
cartoons.
In
other ways, writing a novel is like falling in love. The
newness of the material, the contours
and terrain to explore, and the dents to fix. It's
intimidating. How do you put all these pieces together to make
sense. This intimidating landscape gives birth to the fear of
failure that I have to constantly battle against. My fear of
failure always seems to come to me as a whisper saying,
'And you think somebody is gonna give a damn about what
you are writing?' But I believe in myself and my
ability to entertain people so I tell this sick whispery voice
to just take a hike because I am busy writing. The trick
to overriding my fear of failure is to use it as the merciless
motivator who will sneer at me, even at my best piece of work.
Did
you always plan on being a writer?
As
a young boy I had thought about becoming a pilot, a dream of
every boy. But as I grew older I discovered that I had this
gift with words, and thus felt the natural inclination to
write. What helped was the fact that daydreaming and weaving
fantasies were not college courses. They are just a part
of me.
What
is the best way to promote a new book?
With
a $50,000 promotional budget! Okay, I am way off
base. There are so many ways to publicize a new book that
there is no single way to effectively do this. A good
combination is using the media and by word-of-mouth. This
tends to create a cycle where one medium feeds off the other.
And just remember that readers enjoy books recommended to them
by friends. It has worked for me.
How
do you create your characters?
Every writer
develops their characters differently; in my case my charactereek
I took my characters out to lunch.
Silent
Whispers was labeled too white! Too white for a fellow
Zambian...
I do understand in
a sense where this is coming from. It's always comforting and
indeed convenient to put a label on anything as a way of
connecting to it. All the Silent Whispers' characters
were white with a storyline that screams 'First World
Issues.' If one were to look beyond the characters, it
would become apparent that the issues raised in the book
do not fit on a black or white platform, but on the contrary,
afflict all of humanity. I don't believe that feminism,
justice or truth are white issues. Every race has to deal with
these.
I would hate to be
defined as a champion of Black Fiction because by so doing I
would be denying myself the opportunity to be a part of
the vast possibilities that abound outside of my race. I don't
want to live and work in a box bordered by the shade of my
skin. Writing specifically for Blacks would also be
self-defeating for me as I am always trying to explore and
discover new horizons without just riding on the wave of my
color. For anyone looking to find my identity in a work
of fiction would do well to abort that mission. There is
more to literature, fiction or not, that goes beyond color
that I as both a reader and a writer find heartwarming. But
then again, this is all just a matter of perception.
Did
you experience rejection considering the fact that you are an
African writer willing to compete in the western world?
The Publishing
Industry is highly competitive. You have to be exceptionally
good at writing or have specialized knowledge of some sort for
most of these publishers to even read your manuscript. I have
enough rejection letters to fill one side of my bedroom wall.
I will frame them one day. I got published because I believed
in my story and never gave up knocking on doors.
Perseverance...or is it dementia? It's my dream to get
on the New York Times Best Seller List one day. Even if it
takes twenty novels to get me there.
Who
are some of your favorite authors? Have you maintained a
similar liking of your ‘mentors’ or has your taste changed
with time?
I read a lot of
John Grisham, Dean Koontz and Thomas Harris for encouragement.
Other times I would sit down to read Charles Dickens, Sir
Thomas Malory and anything else that piques my fancy.
What
is the most common mistake you see beginning writers make?
Inflated
vocabularies. Readers don't want to have to constantly refer
to a dictionary every time they turn a page. This is something
I learned from a Writing Workshop.
What
advice do you have for aspiring or first-time Zambian
writer?
Before anything
else an aspiring writer has to be able to write. So
every time a beginning writer faces that blank sheet of
paper, don't be overwhelmed by the fear of failure. Write
something even if it is mediocre. You can always revise your
work, right! To write you have to gain rhythm and this is
a consequence that comes by first trudging through the
murky waters of mediocrity. Don't expect perfection
from your first draft. Allow yourself room to experiment. And
then run like mad revising your finished work.
And lastly, use
objective analysis to evaluate your finished work. Instead of
patting yourself on the back ask this question: Can I do
better than this? Just don't let friends or relatives critique
your work because most if not all will praise anything
you write---even before you write anything at all.
The competition is
tight but anything of value will always find a place in the
marketplace. So, establish contacts, attend workshops if you
can, and be assertive enough in your aims to sale yourself.
A
voice for Zambian authors
I am not sure we
have any other Zambians writing outside of Journalism and
technical papers. I think though that this effort will inspire
other Zambians to write. It need not be White fiction.
Anything that has the allure to captivate a readership will
make us all proud.