Cambridge Edition April 2022 - Web

CULTURE CLUB

LETTING FLY Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is also a first-timer – named one of the top ten new authors of 2022 by The Observer’s New Review IN FLIGHT Another debut novelist at this spring’s Literary Festival has written about those whose careers entail dealing with death. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds charts the life of gravedigger Darwin, who has freshly disembarked in Port Angeles. Meanwhile, Yejide is soon to inherit a supernatural ability upon her mother’s death. The women of her family, descended from the vulture-like corbeau, are able to speak to the deceased. Ayanna herself was in a period of grieving, spending time in cemeteries, when the inspiration for the novel struck. “I was thinking about the bureaucratic, real-world nature of death; the paperwork, certificates and wills – and that intense, liminal space that grief produces, which is intensely spiritual and psychological.” Her debut began life as a short story written in 2017, when she arrived at the University of East Anglia for her creative writing masters, deciding to ‘strip it for parts’ and turn it into a novel. One of its defining elements is magic realism; her imagined Trinidad is one of dense, enchanted forests and scorching, unfathomable city streets. “Trinidad is a magical place,” says Ayanna. “It sounds cliche to think of islands as magical, but mythology is present in our oral, musical and literary traditions, drawn from our African, Indian and European ancestors. It’s a mixed, cosmopolitan place. Mythology and folklore are the bedrock of a lot of our cultural traditions.” Ayanna’s author’s note reads: “The island of Trinidad is real. The geography, characters and places in this novel are fiction.” This allows her permission to

stretch and distort its landscape. “The story and characters required the widest scope. I needed to take the essence of the city, but turn the volume up, make it more complicated, make mountains closer.” The note doubles as a jibe about Trinidad and its oft-commented-on surrealism. “A lot of Trinidadians who read the book know exactly what I’m talking about. This place that might be someone’s vacation spot, or exotic, is – for us – very real.” Written during lockdown from Norwich, Ayanna’s transformed Trinidad is also the result of being a long way from home. Reminiscing about the mythology she was told as a child, research took her towards the corbeau, birds that consume the dead, as well as burial practices. “If anybody looked at my Google search history, they would be very concerned.” In the vein of other recent novels by female writers, Ayanna is concerned with matrilineage. Caribbean society, she

her forebears. “I knew five generations of my family intimately through accounts. They are all buried in the same cemetery, the same few plots.” Continuing to study creative writing at UEA, Ayanna is neck-deep in her next novel, as well as a thriving writing community. “There are so many other authors whose books are going to come out in the years to come – and we all sat in the same classes, workshops and pubs.” Cambridge Literary Festival takes place 20-24 April. Visit the website for more information and to book tickets. cambridgeliteraryfestival.com

HEAR MORE FROM AYANNA LLOYD BANWO AT THE NEW WRITERS’ PANEL ON 24 APRIL

explains, is matrifocal, with grandmothers and mothers taking central place. On her contemporaries, she suggests: “We are living in a time where we’re thinking of gender roles differently, about how we are gendered and these roles get passed down. We’re thinking about how women experience or make history, rather than just men.” Ayanna’s exploration of the subject is intensely personal; as a child, her grandmother would recount endless stories of

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