Henry Akubuiro
For others, last year, 2019, might be just another year with contrasting tales; but, for the Nigerian author of four works, Michael Afenfia, it was a year of hurrahs. For one, he secured a book deal for his recently concluded fiction blog series, The Mechanics of Yenagoa (MoY), which would be published as a book in 2020 from the stable of Masobe Books. It’s also the year he launched yet another fiction series, Rain Can Never Know, on his blog.
In this fresh series, Rain Can Never Know, the reader meets Rainß, the lead character, who is determined to make her life count, despite the mud of different shapes and sizes life hurls at her. We discover that she was abused by her father, betrayed by her mother and forced to fend for herself from a tender age. Rain finds love in the arms of D3 whom we discover he is double-faced. She finds favour in the sight of top businessman, Chief Rowland Edozie, and her life would never remain the same – for now, for good.
In the latest episode of the weekly series, “Episode XVIV”, published in michaelafendia.com/blog, love is in the air. A Romeo has made a marriage proposal to his Juliet, from David to Rain–but the problem is making up her mind to bring him home and introduce him to his parents. She is hedging to say yes, not because he is jobless at the moment, but because of something else.
Her mother isn’t impressed, however, by her vacillation: “…bring him home. Your father and I would like to meet him. We’d like to see for ourselves what kind of person he is and if he’s good enough for our daughter.”
Why is she hedging? The answer to this question is soon provided by Rain when she tells her mother: “I don’t think I want to Bring David home to a man who isn’t even my father. More importantly, I don’t think I’d want the man who did those horrible things to me forming father-of-the-year in front of the man I marry, that is if I ever get married…. What if the man I get married to turns out to be a monster, too? What if my own child suffers the same fate as I did?”
Rain’s prejudice has become ingrained, and despite her mother’s persistence for her to say yes to Dave, she spooks at the very thought of tying the nuptial knots. Hear her: “But if I say yes to David’s proposal, which I’ve not, I would have to bring him to Port Harcourt to meet you guys, and that’s such a hard thing for me to do right now.”
But, will Rain say no to Dave? What is this nagging thing in her heart that has made her hardhearted to say yes to a marriage proposal to a guy who is mad in love with her, in a country where young girls of marriage age throng the churches for miracle husbands? You may wish to visit Afenfia’s blog to find out
Speaking about what inspired the new series, the author said he just wanted to start writing again after what he described as “a long break.” He set a date to start a new series and got the title as well as the artwork. “And then I was forced to begin writing, more or less. It was just the desire to satisfy people who had read The Mechanics of Yenagoa (MoY) and wanted to read something new I was writing,” said Michael Afenfia.
“And because that method of writing a series had worked with MoY, I thought it would not be a bad idea to try it again. Although it could be really challenging to put out a body of work every other week, I needed to confirm whether the success with The Mechanics of Yenagoa was a fluke or not. If I could replicate that success with Rain, I feel that writing series like this is something I could excel at.”
As the story progresses, we get to know more about Chief Edozie, through the eyes of his employee, Rain; Mrs. Ohita Edozie, his wife; and Mr. Waks, his company accountant. He confesses to his wife that he might not exceed age 54 because of an ancestral curse. His wife commits to finding an end to the curse – or so we were made to believe. Chief himself, while seeking a spiritual remedy, is told the remedy to his curse might not be as far-off as he had imagined.
For most writers, they draw their character from everyday events around them. This is the same for Michael Afenfia, but there is more to it. “When I start typing on my laptop, the characters just come alive on their own. I hardly have a short or long term plan of what I am going to do,” said Afenfia.
“When one episode is done, I just bring out my laptop and start typing and somehow the names just pop up, and what they should do just unfolds as I write. There is no drawing board or blueprint; the characters come alive on their own,” he added.
For many ardent followers of the creative work of Michael Afenfia, suspense is among his forte. This clearly was a tool that drew many readers to his recently concluded and soon-to-be-released book, The Mechanics of Yenagoa, who, after each episode, could not wait for the next. Afenfia’s proficiency with suspense is such that he often throws his readers off balance with virtually every turn of event. If you can predict the turn of his events in his novels, you must be a genius!
Compared with MoY, Afenfia did not set out to create a blockbuster suspense-filled story. “I just wanted to tell a story. Something quite different from The Mechanics of Yenagoa,” he said. “To be honest, I was not after getting readership for this series, but, so far, the extent of interest in it has indeed been surprising and impressive.” The moment the author announced the commencement of Rain, many followers soon started expecting that the story would end up as a novel, as its predecessor – MoY. Posed a direct question on this, the author’s response is “time would tell.”
Port Harcourt-cradled and Bayelsa-blooded, Afenfia is a writer, social commentator and public intellectual. “I associate with everything good and exciting about Nigeria and humanity,” he told The Sun Literary Review.
Although he has a Law degree from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology and an MBA from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, writing has always been his passion – “my calling,” according to him.
As I learnt more of himself, he garnered cherished experiences in construction, real estate, banking and public service.
So far, he has published a number of critically acclaimed novels –When the Moon Caught Fire (2010), A Street Called Lonely (2011), Don’t Die on Wednesday (2014), Paxoid (2017) which he co-authored with his 12-year-old son, and The Mechanics of Yenagoa (2020). He has also published a number of nonfiction writing, including a biography.
Between 2014 and 2016, Afenfia served as Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Bayelsa State Chapter. He is currently a Patron of Yenagoa Book Club (YBC), and a member of the literati in Canada, where he has been living since late last year.