After reading “like blood on the mouths of death,” I let it sit in my imagination for a few days, savoring the language and imagery. It wasn’t until the second reading that I began to unravel the complex realities of childhood, death, and the ravages of the unseen. What can you tell us about the inspiration behind the story?
This story breathes close to my heart. I lost my mother to cancer in 2012, and years later, the perseverance of that grief pushed me to write this piece. I never saw her at the peak of her illness as she had travelled out of the country for treatment and ended up dying there. Contemplating whether not seeing her deterioration was something to be grateful for or not, the earliest seeds of “like blood on the mouths of death” were planted into my mind. Merged with my affinity for horror, I wanted to explore a child’s experience of a mother being swallowed by an illness they could not entirely understand. And as the story grew on the page, I realized it could also be space for the fears and guilt that plagued me those early days of my grieving.
Children see the world very differently. With this story you expertly blend a child’s perceptions with both the horrors of a harsh, painful death and the dark unknown, especially with lines like this: “like kids, like me, but they rustled, raffia fronds for skin.” As a writer, why do you think children make such fine guides through the shadows? Could it be they recognize just enough of the world around them to realize when that very same world has been turned upside down?
Using a child’s innocent mind, it is easier to take ourselves back to our primal and untainted fears. I agree with you. To add to that, I also think the older we get, the more tethered we become to the world. Reality becomes more concrete; our understanding sheds its infinity. A necessity, but also a limitation. However, with children, the imagination is still free-flying, and writing from their perspective allows for directions usually unattainable. This not only makes for an interesting story/storytelling, but it also becomes an exercise in returning to that liquid state of childlike awe, for the writer and, ultimately, the reader. I enjoy that returning.
“How did Mama do it?” An intimate question made all the more devastating, given the moment it’s asked. How would you answer it if you swapped places with the main character?
If I swapped places with the main character of this story, I would only grasp emptiness in search of an answer to this question, too. I remember being on the phone with my mother while she was away for treatment, explaining to her how I felt sick or thought I was dying, and against her weakness, she would still try to cheer me up or pray away my fears. I still remember the cracks in her voice, over her words and laughter. I will never fully understand that maternal instinct to protect the child, nothing beyond words. How did Mama do it? All I can say is love. A mother’s love can strengthen the tremble of her tired voice, still for a while the tremble of her aching hands, in ways I will never understand, but I am eternally grateful to have known. On my own deathbed, I can only hope I have enough love to try.
In 2022 you took part in the AKO Caine Prize Writing Workshop, an illustrious opportunity to reach out to writers from other African countries. Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for writers interested in submitting to the Caine Prize or attending the workshop?
Keep improving your craft. Keep writing. Share things with the world. The workshop might just come calling. Also keep submitting your stories and find publications that know to submit on your behalf to the Prize. Read poetry.
What’s next for Victor Forna? What can fans of genre fiction look forward to in 2024?
I have two short stories out in the next few months. “Vermillion” in Strange Horizons (science fiction) and “Where Is light, Yvette Jones?” in Seize The Press (cosmic horror). Hopefully, there will be more by the end of the year. Stay up to date by following me on Twitter at @vforna12, or check my linktree (linktr.ee/vforna) for previous publications.
