Ayesha Harruna Attah: ‘Constantly Learning’

09/27/2018

Ayesha Harruna Attah is the author of Harmattan Rain, nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Saturday’s Shadows, and The Hundred Wells of Salaga. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Asymptote Magazine, and the Caine Prize Writers’ 2010 Anthology. She received the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for non-fiction, and shuttles back and forth between Senegal and Ghana. 

AyeshaHarrunaAttah/Facebook; ayeshahattah/Instagram.                                            

NSA: What advice would you give your younger self?

AYESHA HARRUNA ATTAH: I would tell her to relax, to slow down and soak in things, to stop trying to be an over-achiever.

NSA: What have you learned about yourself since your first book was published?

AHA: I am constantly learning, so the list is long. But, I guess the biggest lesson is that one can grow muscles. For instance, public speaking wasn’t very enjoyable to me when my book was first published. It still isn’t, but I’ve learned how to beat the nerves.

NSA: What things in life are still a mystery to you?

AHA: So many things. Human emotions like hate. Evil. Hormones. Why we have to have mosquitoes and flies and roaches. I could go on and on.

NSA: If you were an all-powerful mayor for a day, what ONE change would you make to Accra?

AHA: I would ban all plastic bags.

NSA: Characters often find themselves in situations they aren’t sure they can get themselves out of: when was the last time you found yourself in a situation that was hard to get out of, and what did you do?

AHA: Ghana presents you with so many situations like this. I needed to get an important document processed. I started early enough, but the red tape and administrative blocks were so insurmountable that I just went ahead and had a middleman take care of the process. Not my proudest moment, but I was desperate.

NSA: Have you experienced any form of discrimination in Ghana?

AHA: As a woman, I’m often the last person to be seen to in many offices. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to say, “I was here first.”

NSA: What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?

AHA: Story ideas. What we’ll be eating for dinner. When I’ll get home – I’m not yet a big fan of driving.

NSA: What do Accra and Dakar have in common?

AHA: They are both sprawling cities. They both have the sea close. Traffic-mostly how to beat it-is always on their citizen’s minds.

NSA: What ONE experience in Ghana can you not get anywhere else in the world?

AHA: Kenkey, fish, and pepper.

NSA: What is your biggest fear?

AHA: Suffering a plane crash.

NSA: What do you want your tombstone to say?

AHA: She lived, she danced, she loved!

NSA: No 1 on your bucket list

AHA: Travel the world to eat.

NSA: What kind of relationship do you have with your famous aunt the ex-First Lady Mrs. Konadu Rawlings?

AHA: I don’t often discuss my family life in public, but we have a good relationship.

NSA: What’s your definition of success?

AHA: Having lived and loved as best as I possibly can, being the best mother I can possibly be, having published as many books as I possibly can …

NSA: Politics or Religion: which is worse, and why?

AHA: Religion. Everything is political, so it can’t be removed from life. Religion, on the other hand, is a choice most people make, and sometimes it causes more harm than good. In Ghana, for instance, to make money, one simply has to start a church. What does that say about the state of Christianity in the country?

NSA: Decriminalize recreational drugs or not, and why?

AHA: Decriminalize whatever we can find in nature.

NSA: How can we get more Ghanaians ‘feeling’ Ghana?

AHA: Life conditions need to improve. It is currently so difficult and expensive to get anything done.

NSA: Why the double “R” in your middle name?

AHA: That is a mystery to me, too. Some people in the family spell it with just one, sometimes with an ‘h’ at the end.

NSA: In your many interviews, what’s the one question you wished someone would have asked you, but never did? And how would you respond to that?

AHA: Still don’t have an answer to this one!