Journey to the Lost Ark
Happy Lost Ark Dreaming day.
This little book is here, after a lifetime of waiting. The publishing wheels turn really slowly—and then suddenly, quickly—seeming to take forever in the eyes of those of us on the other side. But I assure you every moment spent so far bringing this book to fruition has been warranted. And perhaps a good way to show you why—and entertain you meanwhile—is to offer a timeline of how Lost Ark Dreaming made its way into the world, and the people who were crucial to ensuring it so.
Summer 2016
I’ve moved to Lagos from Benin City, working—for two years so far—on Victoria Island. My daily commute takes me past what used to be Bar Beach, now an eroded coastline held at bay by a retaining wall. “The Great Wall of Lagos” the Chagoury Group, custodians of the Eko Atlantic project, call it. You can see the scaffolding of the five Eko Pearl towers, and the rest of this future city, just begin to go up in the distance.
Now I understand why when I leave the office late, I see dredgers still working, lights shimmering across the lagoon, digging into the ocean deep and piling collected sand atop the human-made island on which this city will be built. In the morning, construction and day workers will get screened before being ferried inward to work. The gates to the project will be heavily guarded—men in militarized uniforms with guns. I wonder, every now and then, if the workers know this may be the last time they’ll ever enter that city.
Soon, I will witness much of Victoria Island’s notorious floodings, including at least one scenario where I’ll have to take a canoe from the bus stop to the office. I will watch the Lagos state government send in forces to raze “illegal waterside settlements” and toss their belongings into the sea. It will remind me of this land’s ancestors being tossed into the Atlantic, and tales of Great Floods that once invaded their homes. I will witness religious devotees praying to the waters, and my mind will churn like the waters, mulling these connections over. I will start a notebook and write down lots of things. Lots.
Fall 2019
It’s now a year since I moved to Tucson, Arizona for my graduate degree, but these events and images still weigh on me. At an interdisciplinary conference on environmental futures, I make the first move to pull these disparate ideas together, employ both the language of the known—science, evolution, environmental shifts—and the not-as-well-known—spiritual endeavors, fabulist tales, and how local communities deal with changes to the land and sea and living world. It draws a warm applause, and for the first time, I feel like I have the seed of an idea.
The next semester, my fiction professor, Kate Bernheimer, asks us to consider writing something longform. She wants us to go home and consider various ideas. But I don’t need to go home. I don’t need various ideas. I only have one thing in mind.
Winter 2020
A year later, I’ve written most of what will become Lost Ark Dreaming.
I’m in a class on Indigenous Poetics with Bojan Louis, who takes his time walking us through literature originating from Indigenous-identifying authors in North America. There is much here to learn about the interaction between the human and the physical environment, engagements across our tapestry of existence. Land becomes a living idea, and just like that—click—I begin to understand water in the same way.
When poet and dear friend, Logan Phillips, points me toward Rita Indiana’s Tentacle, and I later encounter Rivers Solomon’s (et al) The Deep, the shape of this story comes together for me. I know, now, the book I want to write for my thesis.
Spring/Summer 2021
My thesis advisor, Chris Cokinos, after reading my pitch, wants me to think about how high-rises have been variously portrayed in literature, and where mine fits in this tradition. After much research, J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise (the book, not the film) feels spiritually closest, but I also find a lot of overlap in Snowpiercer (the graphic novel, not the film or TV show) with what I’m trying to do. These, alongside all that’s come before, become my anchors.
Next to reach full emergence are the main characters: their motivations, needs, desires, histories. What they believe or don’t, what they lie to themselves about, what they refuse to look at. Yekini takes a while to become fully formed, and Ngozi needs to be complexified, snapped out of his unidimensionality. But Tuoyo’s raw grief and palpable irritation are perfect as is.
Afterward, I take a peek at the writing notebook I’ve been using all this time, sketching out the layouts of the towers, trying on different voices, writing up fictional documents and backstories for this story world. I realise, now, how crucial these surrounding stories are, how much more impactful they may be when delivered directly to the reader rather than through a dialogue or description gimmick. On a whim, I throw in one fictional document. It fits. I try another. It fits too. I toss another, another. The book swells.
Somewhere within this same notebook lie philosophical exchanges I imagine an omniscient godhead of sorts would offer to one another, justifying or decrying their lack of interference in the events of this world and story. When I show them to my advisor Chris, he wonders: perhaps there are Nigerian poets who have used their voice in a manner reminiscent of this? I return to my favoured poets and emerge with a deepened respect for the work of Gabriel Okara, particularly The Fisherman’s Invocation and other poems. With this, I shape the godhead’s musings. Soon, they make their way into the manuscript as well.
My virtual thesis defense is attended by author Tade Thompson and the then-department chair Aurelie Sheehan (RIP). Their praise for the work is effusive, though they give me a lot of revision points to think about. I will ride this high to my graduating class’s public reading.
Fall 2021
Jonathan Strahan, renowned anthologist and editor-at-large at Tor, writes to me. He’s acquiring for Tordotcom and wants to know what I’ve worked on recently (we’ve worked together twice before—both anthologies, both reprints). I’ve just moved to Canada to start a new job, a family, a new life. I’ve got nothing other than my thesis and the last short story I wrote at workshop.
Send both, he says.
The short story is titled Choke, and ends up being published by Reactor (formerly Tor.com). The novella he particularly loves, and together with another editor I’ve previously worked with at Tordotcom—Eli Goldman—Lost Ark Dreaming is born.
It is also the first time in my history of publishing novels that I’m allowed to keep my original title.
Spring/Summer 2022
The cover art from Raphael Lacoste comes in before I can blink. It’s excellent, reminiscent of the very Eko Pearl towers that inspired the Fingers. This is becoming a real thing, it dawns on me. I better go hard on these revisions.
All of 2023
Revision round 1: Everything Chris, Tade and Aurelie said. Everything Bojan said. Everything Kate said. Everything I’ve ever wanted to fix. All this, even before turning in the manuscript.
Revision round 2: Jonathan returns with his notes. He tends to be on the sparser side, and this time is no different. But the questions he raises are the same many readers of science fiction would. He knows his readers pretty well. I try to address the queries as much as the story’s vision will allow. There are multiple push-pull points, portions I suspect the average SFF reader would be surprised by—and that surprise could land on either side. But I opt for surprise. I like surprise. The story demands surprise.
Revision rounds 3, 4, 6, 8—take this book out of my hands!
Somewhere between the various passes, copyedits and proofreads, audio rights have gone to Audible. They want to do a full cast reading—six narrators, all of Nigerian heritage. Unprecedented in the history of the company. I haven’t finished jumping for joy before a Nigerian publisher, Masobe, picks up regional rights. They have a beautiful cover featuring a merperson. The Lost Ark returns home, wind in its sails. My cup is full. I am satiated.
The blurbs and reviews start to appear. Friends and colleagues from the continent and beyond offer effusive praise—Tlotlo Tsamaase, Samit Basu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Olivie Blake. Trade reviews trickle in—Library Journal gives LAD a starred review. Goodreads and bloggers and book vlogs do their thing. I try not to look at much of it, but inside, I am bursting with pride in The Little Book That Could.
Winter/Spring 2024
And finally, almost there. I’m too fatigued for a tour this year, but I will host a local event for the folks who’ve helped me settle in this city. I rope in my English department, the city art gallery, my local bookstore and a local arts organization. Somehow, they agree. A date is set. The arrangements are made.
And then we wait patiently for the day—today—when Lost Ark hits shelves.
Buy: Print (US) | Print (UK) | Print (Nigeria & WA) | ebook | Audio
Launch event: June 1 @ Ottawa Art Gallery (5PM)
