MK Kuol

What was your favorite book as a child?

For the fact, to contextualize, that I come from a society that is more into oral literature than written literature, I didn’t start out reading. Instead, through the stretch of my childhood, I was exposed to folktales, riddles, chants, songs, tonguetwisters, genealogies and other forms that bodied Dinka literature. Every nightfall, before we had our supper and before we were subsequently sent in for the night, the elderly — more out of obligation — made sure we had something of Dinka literature as it was in other homesteads. The purposes, among others, of doing that were to ingrain in us the values expected of us, to pass down important information and to train our minds to be retentive and our mouths to be eloquent.

I would later be introduced to reading by my uncle Nuldit in 2006 — the only literate member of our family — to a children’s book so worn that its cover had peeled off with the title but that I fondly still remember for I first came across the word ‘shade’ in it.

However, the novel I enjoyed reading most when I was in high school was Across the Bridge by Mwangi Gicheru, a Kenyan novelist.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

My primordial motivation, if any, has been eaten out of shape by time, I suppose. All I can recollect is that I was always reticent, speaking only when I deemed it absolutely necessary, growing up. Yet, paradoxically, I had this mind that always, and wildly, brewed with imaginations. I could sit off the crowd — by crowd I mean family or classmates — and immerse myself into imagined scenarios I reimagined from my narrow experiences of childhood. As I grew up, it, too, grew in its intensity, in its flare. And so to accommodate my oddity, I turned to the page, so often, that it became almost a natural habit.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

I think it was dancing in the rain when I was young. I had a rare and undiagnosed condition that made my skin rash every time I exposed it to rainwater. However, like the rest of the children, I couldn’t resist the urge to jump into the rain and dance despite my mother’s warnings that could easily collapse into beatings if ignored.

So when I was a bit older and the responsibility of tending goats fell on me, I would pray it rained. And every time it did, I danced in it wildly, enjoying each minute as if my life depended on it. Later on, the skin rashes would sell me off cheaply so my mother would set up a big fire and ask me to sit by it until the rashes disappeared.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing?

I do listen to music, while drafting. I play Arizona JJ, a folksinger whose music I deeply enjoy, on repeat and to exact repeat, it could be “Keriec Eben,” my favourite of all his songs, only, sometimes.

Initially, I used to use music to cancel out external noise as I draft sometimes while watching football matches, while on public transport, while out with friends etc., but with time, it dawned on me I was better creatively with music on than when I was in total quiet (except when editing). I googled this “epiphany” and I learned music is a stimulant. Until then, I had only depended on caffeine.