CAREER PROFILE :Meet Mabala the ticklish tale writer

Richard S.Mabala is a household name in Tanzania owing to numerous children’s books he has authored. Apart from authoring children’s books, he also writes training manuals in life skills, gender and youth development and satirical columns in the newspapers. Mabala was born British and after graduating as a teacher went to Tanzania as a volunteer and fell in love with the country.

He became a Tanzanian citizen and has taught in secondary schools, teacher colleges and the University of Dar es Salaam. He finally decided he was more activist than academic and was founder member of several of Tanzania’s most influential NGOs (for gender and education).

What inspired you to write Run Free book?

I wanted to write an inspirational novel for some time about young people struggling and succeeding. Most of such stories are about boys, scoring the winning goal, winning a bicycle race etc so I also wanted the main character to be a girl. When the announcement for the Burt Prize for African Literature came, it was just at the right time as I was not so busy so it provided the motivation to turn my ideas into practice.

Of course, as I was writing, many other themes bubbled up from inside, including corruption and its evils, class and education, the rights of children to decide for themselves (Patrick decided to be an artist while his dad wanted him to be a lawyer)

Do you have a specific writing style?

I think that is probably for others to say. Usually, for example in Mabala the Farmer and my newspaper columns, I put quite a lot of emphasis on humour but this was less the case with Run Free which was more serious. I also experimented with a new style in that the whole story is revealed through different characters talking (no authorial voice at all) which I had never done before.

How did you come up with the title?

The main two characters are runners so the Run part was easy. There is a famous book about bringing up lions called Born Free, Mandela’s famous statement “Free at Last” and the free part of it reflects both the way Rehema runs and the outcome of her running. Clara is not free, she is controlled by her father which is a major reason why in the end she cannot defeat Rehema.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

I always hate this question because I do not write to give messages. Messages narrow and hinder the development of the plot and the characters and very often the way books are taught the book is reduced to a proverb or a saying. 200 pages of the author exploring life in many different aspects and at the end someone comes up and says the message of the book is respect your parents.

To me the message comes out through the appreciation of the themes out of which different people will identify different messages. For example, in Run Free, the message could be the evils and the effects of corruption, or the importance of being true to yourself, or the talents and challenges of the girl child. Messages are not something to be discussed verbally but to be felt from the way the author writes. What strikes a person as she or he reads and what affects or influences her/him can be the message.

How much of the book is realistic?

What is realistic? We don’t have school athletics like we used to but I think such competitions are realistic. Some argue that the way Clara makes Rehema fall, or the bribes paid by the father to other members of the team are not realistic but just recently we have seen similar incidents internationlly. Just last week in the international motorbike championship, one pushed another off his motor bike (far worse than what Clara did.

There is a phrase used in literary criticism ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. The author has to convince the readers that such things can happen and I believe that that is achieved in the book.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

They are based on a whole series of experiences, many of which bubble up inside as you are writing. Who has not seen such corruption among some members of the traffic police force? And of boarding unsafe buses and praying to God that you arrive safely. I have had very personal experiences of disability so the theme of disability comes naturally into many of my works. The scenario around building the village youth centre is an expression fo the goals of the youth organisation I am director of, TAMASHA. We believe that young people need their space and we are working towards that in many districts in Tanzania. I wanted to show that providing spaces for young people is key to their positive development. In my work with young people also, gender based violence against girls is so common and so hidden that I felt it should be talked about.

What books have most influenced your life?

So so so many and I have been fortunate enough to teach on the Tanzanian syllabus. I really regret the death of that syllabus as it was one of the finest I have ever seen. For example, in the Form Four syllabus, Song of Lawino by Okot p’Bitek must be one of the most influential, in content and in style. In later years, I have come to be influenced by the South African critique of the book but his systematic deconstruction of cultural imperialism has left a lasting impression on me, and I think on my students. The second one is A Grain of Wheat. I love Ngugi’s writing in general but I still think A Grain of Wheat, together with Devil on the Cross, is his greatest work. I remember reading it for the first time when I was on the plane flying to Tanzania in 1973 to become a volunteer.

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