The Gods Are Not To Blame or Why Greek Myths Are for Everyone

One of my fondest childhood memories is watching a play with my classmates – we were probably in SS1 then (the equivalent of 10th grade ) – in our boarding school’s assembly hall. A travelling university theatre group had made a stop at our school to stage Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame. It was a stunning performance in English and Rotimi’s Yoruba language. That play introduced me to Yoruba gods and sayings. After the perfomance, we were told that it was a retelling of a Greek play: Oedipus Rex. How could it be, we wondered, that this very Yoruba play about Odewale who was cursed with killing his father and marrying his mother, was a retelling of an ancient Greek play?

I don’t recall when I eventually did read Oedipus Rex, but I recall being fascinated by the idea that something written in a different time, for a different culture, resonated so well in a Nigerian context, over a thousand years later. It was mind boggling. Even now, when I think of it, I find it difficult to imagine the characters as anything but Yoruba-speaking Nigerians. 

Perhaps, had my classmates and I been more astute, or more mature, had we read more Greek myths, we would have understood that like our Nigerian folktales, myths are living things. They are not the past, they do not expire. And therefore, like our folktales lend themselves to adaptations. There are no “official” versions of Greek myths. In fact, different versions appear to contradict themselves.  For instance, the myth of Hades and Persephone – the myth I reimagined in The Middle Daughter – has versions where Persephone’s tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds that keep her bound to Hades, and versions where she eats the seeds willingly out of love for her abductor (Stockholm syndrome?).  

Additionally, all the stuff that Greek myths are made of: desire, revenge, oppression, lust for power, love are things that humans – since the beginning of time – have grappled with. The myths remind us that after all is said and done, we as humans have more that connects us than not. There’s nothing new under the sun. 

Furthermore, myths (like our folktales) always speak to the now whatever and wherever our ‘now’ happens to exist in. That is their superpower. That is why they transcend time and culture and race. They give us a lens through which we interpret our own experiences. The myth of Cassandra is one that Ngugi Wa Thiongo, the Kenyan writer used in a radio interview some years back, to describe the writer’s role in his country: doomed to prophesy but never to be believed. It was so apt, so natural, it seemed like the only way to express his frustration at the chaos he’d warned about playing out.

Arguably, it’s not just Greek classics and myths that do this. Any piece of fiction that is well written transcends time and place. Someone once said that it is in writing the particular that we approach the universal, or something to that effect. How true that is. I have read American and European texts set in the most provincial cities, with characters that would seem to have little in common with me, and yet the stories seem to have been written specifically for me, as if the writer had bored themselves into my mind and reproduced everything I was thinking.

Texts are not defined by the origins of the writers but by their content, and how well they articulate the human condition. That’s why we read. Not just to be entertained, but to assure ourselves that we are part of a community, that we are not stranded, islands on our own. That’s how I experience reading. 

Chika Unigwe was born and raised in Enugu, Nigeria. She graduated from the University of Nigeria, KU Leuven (Belgium) and has a PhD from Leiden University, Holland. Author of The Middle Daughter (Dzanc Books, April 2023), Unigwe’s previous work includes novels On Black Sisters Street and Night Dancer as well as the short story collection Better Never than Late. She was also a contributor to Of This Our Country: Acclaimed Nigerian Writers on the Home, Identity and Culture They Know; Lagos Noir; New Daughters of Africa; and Regiones Imaginaires. Find her online at ChikaUnigwe.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram (@chikaunigweauthor), Twitter (@chikaunigwe), and LinkedIn. 

Samantha Vérant on Writing What You Know and Love

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Samantha Vérant, author of The Spice Master at Bistro Exotique, the story of a talented chef who discovers how spices and scents can transport her—and, more importantly, how self-confidence can unlock the greatest magic of all: love.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I’m an American living in France and, so far, all of my books have combined food, French/Franco-American culture, and female chefs making their mark in a male dominated industry. Because I live in southwestern France, I like to introduce people to places they might not know about. Although Spice Master takes place in Paris, I chose to base the story in the tenth arrondissement–an up and coming neighborhood and a bit off the beaten path. I had the location pinpointed and a general idea for the plot. I knew I wanted to write a fun book filled with a cast of diverse, quirky characters. I also wanted my protagonist, Kate, to be in the process of opening up her own restaurant. But the true inspiration came when I was eating dinner at a friend’s house a few years ago and she pulled out a tin of saffron and then told me she got it from her spice dealer. I had one of those bingo moments, although dealer wasn’t exactly the right word. Then, I was picking cherries at another friends house and she pointed out the plants in her garden. All of the components in the book came together.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

A story wouldn’t exist without conflict and a character’s growth. I don’t make life easy for Kate, my heroine, and she has to fight for her dream while building up her confidence along the way. I always start a project knowing where I wanted to drive the beginning, the middle, and the end, filling the rest in along the way. My agent and I pitched this book via a proposal– a very detailed outline/synopsis. With such a detailed outline, all of my characters fleshed out, and all of my research on hand, it was easy to get to the heart of the story.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Not really. My agent, Jessica Mileo, is very editorial and we always start with an outline, some tighter than others. With all of my books, some scenes changed during the writing process–cut or added or expanded– to drive the story forward, but the general plot always remains the same. I suppose I’m a planster–a plotter who occasionally flies by the seat of her pants.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I have so many ideas on the burner! I’m currently working on another concept–women’s fiction/contemporary romance that will take place in New York and France, but instead of food I’ll be focusing on drinks. I’m also working on a domestic thriller I’m really excited about. One day, I also want to get back to a historical fiction concept I’m working on. This one focuses on wine and takes place in Northern California (Napa) and Bordeaux/Saint Émilion. I’m about a two and a half hours from Bordeaux–-so this book research is a writer’s (and self-professed oenophile’s) dream. Write what you know and love, right?

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I usually write up a brief synopsis (around a paragraph or two) for each project I’m considering and then I run them by my agents. Together, we figure out which one we’re most excited about and I write on from there. 

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

Your fur babies are adorable! I have one giant cat, Juju, a Chartreux, which is a French breed. He actually inspired one of the ‘characters’ in Spice Master. His full name is Juny de la Barguelonne and I used his last name in Sophie’s books and Spice Master. I named the cat in Spice Master Juju, but, aside from most of his physical characters and name, that’s where the similarities end. The cat in Spice Master wears custom-made diamond, emerald, and sapphire collars with matching leashes. I’m thankful Juju can’t read. We also recently rescued a little stray kitten, Aria, a white tabby with clear blue eyes. For the most part, she stays in the guest room, which is also my office. (She and Juju get along, but she’s afraid of the downstairs and the monster she calls vacuum). You can find her purring like a little motor on my lap when I’m writing. The only distractions come when the cats walk across my keyboard (at least my word count goes up?) or sit on pages when I’m redlining a manuscript. Mostly, the two fur balls provide inspiration. I’d say I have to find a way to incorporate Aria in one of my books, but, before she came into our lives, I used her name in Spice Master! (Aria is Charles’s, our hero’s, ex–a conniving super model). Save for their names, Aria the cat and Aria the model have nothing in common.

Samantha Vérant is a travel addict, a self-professed oenophile, and a determined, if occasionally unconventional, at-home French chef. She lives in southwestern France, where she’s married to a sexy French rocket scientist she met in 1989 (but ignored for twenty years), a stepmom to two incredible kids, and the adoptive mother to a ridiculously adorable French cat. When she’s not trekking from Provence to the Pyrénées, embracing her inner Julia Child, or searching out ingredients and spices, Sam is making her best effort to relearn those dreaded conjugations.

Roselle Lim on The Importance of Food when Writing about Culture

My large, extended family from my mother’s side immigrated to Canada from the Philippines. My eldest aunt was the first to come over and the rest followed her like goslings across the water. We packed our traditions and recipes into our suitcases and moving boxes, and hoped it would help us navigate the strange, new beyond.

In Canada, our tongues, which spoke Hokkien and Tagalog, felt swollen and clumsy wrapping itself around the syllables of English. Our feet stumbled, trying to navigate and learn new roads and customs. The only source of stability and comfort was family and food—in each other and in the familiar tastes of the country we left, we found strength in the dishes my aunts and my father cooked in our new homes.

In general, my family found the same spices and ingredients, and in the case when they didn’t, they substituted to recreate the flavor profile. What they simmered was something old yet new, with the distinct zest of the diaspora. The immigrant experience centres around community and food. The sharing of meals facilitates kinship and a way to connect to our heritage.

When I write about food, it’s not only an expression of my culture and my family—it’s a culmination of my life experiences through one specific lens.

Conversely, I am not lumpia or a bowl of salted duck egg congee.

Writing culture relying on food is reductive. It treats cuisine as the goal when in reality, food acts as the medium to convey nuance, traditions, and history. To write using a character’s traditional foods as a sole means to validate identity or representation is lazy and dismissive. It opens up the writer to perpetuating harmful stereotypes and problematic content.

Without acknowledging or respecting the history and subtleties in the dishes you are writing about, there is much lost in translation. For example, a bowl of arroz caldo on a cold, wintry day is comfort in a bowl and without the context of culture, you might as well write about a bowl of cereal on an ordinary weekday morning.

Food is life for me and often a passionate topic in the cultural framework. While its importance is unquestioned, writing about it in terms of representation and as a reflection of heritage should be taken with great care—the way my father marinates his short ribs with a secret spice blend and sliced kiwis for a day. After all, the act of cooking and feeding can be expressions of love, the way writing is an extension of creativity.

While food can be important to culture, it shouldn’t be the only tool in the arsenal. There are many other ways to convey the complexities of my identity. To me, food is best as a garnish that further enhances what I’d already established and prepared ahead of time. It’s meant to be savoured and act as one of the ways to understand the context and nuances of our identities.

Roselle Lim is the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop and her newest release, Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club. She lives on the north shore of Lake Erie and always has an artistic project on the go.