Okechukwu Nzelu

The award-winning Manchester author of Here Again Now talks to Deborah Grace about love, life and second chances.

D: Our last (virtual) meeting was during lockdown. You had just published your debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, and you were teaching English at high school. How have things changed for you?

O: I’m very lucky! My first book had a wonderful reception and that opened a lot of doors. Now writing is my life in a very real way. I love teaching, but I’m now teaching creative writing at the University of Lancaster. That’s a huge change and it’s wonderful! I’m really grateful to be able to do that.

D: Tell me about your second novel, Here Again Now.

O: It’s the story of three Black British men. Two of them, Ekene and Achike, are gay men in their late thirties and have been friends for a long time. They have feelings for each other that they’ve never formally acted upon. Then we have Chibuike, Achike’s father, who has serious regrets in life, including the way he treated his son when he came out. When something happens to one of the characters, the other two are left to come to terms not only with their grief, but with each other and themselves and to explore a kind of intimacy and love that they weren't expecting, but which allows them to be better versions of themselves.

D: What is the significance of the novel’s title?

O: I wanted a title to express the traditional Igbo belief in reincarnation. I am Igbo by origin; that's my parents’ tribe and their language and belief system. But it works very differently from the karmic reincarnation traditions familiar from Buddhism. It's not about punishment for your past lives; it's just the way the universe works. And it works by keeping families close, so you'll be reincarnated, about seven times I think, within a family. It’s something I was very aware of when I was young and I wanted to write about that, partly as a homage to my culture. Its role in the novel is to be another vehicle for second chances and redemption, but it’s also about delivering a message about interconnectedness of experience. I wanted to pay tribute to the idea of lives connected across generations and across difference.

D: Issues around identity and belonging are explored through the younger characters’ experiences as Black, gay, British Nigerian men. Tell me about that.

O: Ekene and Achike are two people who don’t feel that they belong anywhere. In Nigeria, there are real threats and dangers on a daily basis that the LGBTQ community lives with and sometimes does not survive. On the other hand, in this country, we have racism and Black British gay men are in such a precarious position. We are part of two cultures and often on the receiving end of ignorance and violence in whatever form. Like Chibuike, both Nigeria and the UK are guilty of a dereliction of care. Black, gay, British men deserve that level of care to feel welcome and safe and valued. And we don't have that. I wanted to write about how lonely that can feel. And for me, the novel’s love story matters because it exists in spite of real difficulties and real prejudice.