Kenya's mystery winning playwright

By Alice Martin
BBC African Performance

Enigma and suspense characterised this year's first prize winning play of the BBC African Performance Playwriting Competition in more ways than one.

Kisia fascinated by Nigerian writing

The winning play Homecoming which earns an £800 prize was penned under a Nigerian pseudonym, Chika Okigbo.

But the true identity of the playwright remained a mystery until Kenyan writer Andiah Kisia logged onto the BBC website.

"I have about 5 or 6 email addresses under various names," explains Kisia.

"I sent my play from one of those addresses and didn't check it for a few months."

"Then I looked at the website and discovered I had won."

After proving she had actually written the play, Kisia was able to claim her prize money. She had also won the competition in 2002 with a police drama, K Street. So why did she go to the extent of writing under a male Nigerian pen-name in 2003?

Nigerian Phase

"When I was a little younger I went through an Igbo phase, wanting to be a Nigerian. I was fascinated with Igbo writing, folklore, and Onitsha market literature. Christopher Okigbo, who died during the Biafran war, was my favourite poet."

"I created the email address cokigbo. The first name Chika was a tag I added later."

As much as we have passions and causes, what is going to be of interest are the people who make up the story Wiina Msamati, Judge 2003 BBC African Performance

Kisia explains she meant no subterfuge. "It wasn't anything contrived."

"We have trouble with the internet sometimes, so it's faster to send emails from whatever site you happen to be on."

Since first winning African Performance in 2002, Kisia has stopped working as an advertising copywriter and turned to writing full time. She is a mixture of confidence and diffidence.

"Apparently I have developed a reputation as a writer, but I still have trouble introducing myself as such."

'Banality of evil'

The play Homecoming was highly regarded by this year's African Performance judge, playwright and actor Wiina Msamati, though he begged "one more grain of salt to make the dish perfect".

Someone who may have taken a lot of lives is probably someone's favourite son Andiah Kisia

"The characters are very clear, very strong. The sense of drama is captivating, but I would like just a little more information about the circumstances that surround the grave situation described."

"By the same token," Msamati admits, "ambiguity is a strength of the piece".

In Homecoming, Joseph, just released from prison on health grounds arrives at his daughter's house without warning. In spite of his release, there are many people who would like to see him dead. But is he the monster we believe him to be?

Kisia explains that two ideas came together in the play: the difficulty of family relations and what she terms "the banality of evil".

Normal Monsters

"You meet people who are supposed to be responsible for some of the greatest atrocities and you find they are just like regular human beings."

"Someone who may have taken a lot of lives is probably someone's favourite son or someone's father or someone's brother."

Kenyans have won the Caine Prize two years running

"How do you treat a member of your family, whom you have loved, after they have done something you might consider inexcusable or unforgivable?"

Kisia wanted to explore the "normalcy of people who have committed extraordinary crimes".

It is a theme also taken up by this year's Caine Prize winner, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, whose Weight of Whispers charts the mental decline of an exiled Rwandan aristocrat, presumed to have had blood on his hands.

Kenya is something of a hotbed of literary talent at the moment. Previous Caine Prize winner, Binyavanga Wainana, has set up a new literary magazine in Kenya called Kwani? meaning So What? Both Kisia and Owuor are regular contributors.

Owuor explains how Binyavanga went round "gathering the flock, going into the underground and dragging people out saying, Write!"

Owuor explains that Binyavanga launched his literary magazine telling everyone that "we're in this together".

"The self-censorship that as artists and creative people we imposed upon ourselves during the years of the previous regime - probably we are trying to make up for that now."