Brixton-based novelist Alex Wheatle, author of East of Acre Lane and Island Songs, speaks to Zhana about his experiences.
Alex Wheatle’s work can be said to be African in influence, because he writes about his characters within the context of their community. A book like East of
I have been writing novels since 1997, when I started writing Brixton Rock. Before then, I was a lyricist. In my late teens and early twenties, I was a DJ. In those days, I was called a toaster.
I lived in a children’s home between the ages of four and a half and fifteen. The home was in a place called Shirley Oaks, on the border of Surrey and
I returned to Brixton in about 1977-78. The thing that struck me the most was the music. You could hear it anywhere, hardcore reggae, militant reggae. I fell in love with it. Music by Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley. The revolutionaries.
Even the album covers struck me – the clenched fist with barbed wire, images of
Music was everywhere and most young guys my age wanted to be a DJ or a toaster or a member of a sound system. I achieved the goal of having a sound system with two of my friends, and I was the one to be the DJ. My delivery was not as good as that of my peers. The standard in Brixton was so high at the time.
I would go around with my notepad, writing lyrics here and there. I took my notepad and pencil everywhere I went and I jotted down observations of everyday Brixton life to help me with the dance halls and the blues dances when I grabbed that mike. Because you had to have some kind of knowledge of what was going on in your own area to deliver your lyrics to the crowd.
My lyric book was getting thicker and thicker, and the little stories were getting longer and longer. I looked at all my material one lazy Sunday afternoon, as you do, and I realised I could perhaps put some of the poems and lyrics into a story. That story was Brixton Rock.
Writing it was hard. The grammar was appalling. I just wanted to get the story down. That’s what I tell aspiring writers today. Get the story down and we’ll work on the structure and the grammar later.
The story came quite easily because it was based on true experiences. That’s what I used to write about in my lyrics and poems, true experiences of myself and my friends. So getting the story down wasn’t much of a problem, but getting the structure, getting the grammar right was very hard for me because I didn’t have much schooling.
Z – One thing I think is really interesting in your work is that you concentrate on a community. You write about a whole community of people. That to me is a very African thing. You don’t just concentrate on one character.
AW – Maybe I was influenced by living in Brixton. That was how Brixton was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I felt very much that I was part of a community. I don’t feel that now. There doesn’t seem to be that community spirit anymore. Black people are very dispersed now. In those days, this area was very heavily dominated by West Indians. But now, people have gone South to places like Croydon and Thornton Heath.
So I don’t see that in Brixton again. Brixton is much more multiracial now. There’s a Portuguese community, a North African community, an Australian community. It’s all one big melting pot. Years ago, when I went down to Brixton market, I would say ‘Hello’ to everybody because I knew their faces. Now, I don’t know those faces.
It doesn’t mean that it’s poorer. It just means that the new communities have to gel together, and that gelling is still taking place.
Z – When I was reading East of Acre Lane, I saw you on TV talking about the riots. Were you hassled by the police?
AW – Oh, yes. Sometimes twice or three times a day, sometimes four times a day. It got so bad that we got blasé about it, we would joke about it afterwards. It was a part of our daily life, living in Brixton. If you decided to go into central Brixton, then you were likely to be stopped, it was as simple as that. I’m not saying we accepted it, but it was part of daily life. Of course, there was resistance and hatred. A lot of hatred. I felt that too. A lot of anger. And that was reflected by the DJs and the toasters and those people who held the microphones at dances.
Z – When you describe being beaten up in a police cell, did that happen to you?
AW – Yes. That was me, how I described it. I can remember it so vividly even now. The smell.
Z – Those were hard times. Do you think things are better now?
AW – Yes. There’s still a way to go, but at least the police are actually engaging with the community now, which is a good thing. Just the other day, we had a big debate at Brixton Library and the present commander of Lambeth Police was there. 25 years ago, that would not have happened. So at least there is that engagement with the community now. I think the police are making the right noises now.
I mean, obviously, not all the police – there is still an element of the police that are racist. But I believe that they are working on that. We can never be complacent about this, because there are still problems. But at least they are going in the right direction.
Z – You sound very positive and very hopeful.
AW – Yes, I am.
Z – You know next year is the bicentenary of the ending of the Transatlantic trade? How did you first learn about the enslavement of African people?
AW – Roots. That was a major shock for me. I saw it in the children’s home. I didn’t know nothing about my history, nothing at all. I didn’t even know what country I belonged to, where I came from. I didn’t have a clue.
Z – How many Black children were in the children’s home?
AW – A lot. And there was no historical information that anyone could give you. I went to school and I learned about Henry VIII. I didn’t learn anything about my history. So when Roots came on the TV, it was, What??? I couldn’t believe it.
Before that, I felt that my ancestors were like extras in a Tarzan film. I didn’t know no different. But then Roots came along and it jolted me to the core. It really jolted me. I started to realise that I do have a history. It was massive.
Z – What effect did it have on you?
AW – It politicised me. In a strange way, it gave me strength to resist all the crap that was happening to me. I started to stand up for myself more. I started to shout back at the racist tormentors in the children’s home. I started to fight against them. I started to rebel. Whereas before – maybe I was young, but 13-14 were very important years where I started to find my feet with regard to standing up for myself and not tolerating racist behaviour towards me.
Z – Do bookshops stock Black books?
AW - My local bookshop by Brixton Tube station is located east of
Z – What needs to happen for the bookshops to wake up and take notice?
AW – We don’t just need more Black writers. We need more Black people going into publishing, going into marketing, sales, jacket design, all aspects of the book industry. And we need editors to trust Black writers more than they are doing so now.
At the moment, editors are displaying maximum ignorance for us. That’s why we are not represented in bookstores as much as I would like us to be.
Z – How does your knowledge of the history of the enslavement of Black people influence your writing now?
Island Songs, my most recent book, was greatly influenced by it. The idea of Island Songs came from me listening to my father talk about his childhood and my grandfather’s childhood. My grandfather was a Maroon who came from the Akan district of Ghana. That fired my imagination and I just had to write about it. In fact, Island Songs is just a part of all that history. Island Songs is the story of two sisters growing up in
But I wanted to expand on that. I wanted to take the story back to talk about the Maroons and their struggles, their wars with the English and the Spanish, and so on. I think it's important for our children to know.
Once, my daughter asked me 'What was it like for your parents when they lived back in
Z – A lot of that information is already there, it's in the library. So what needs to be done to make sure that young people actually get hold of that information?
AW – Firstly, you have to encourage young people to go into libraries. There are so many distractions now for our children – there are games, TV, MTV. Somehow, we've got to say that books are cool too, and learning about your history is cool too. We've got to try to convince them, because there are competitors for our children's time. And that comes down to parents.
A simple thing like reading to your son or daughter at bedtime – some of that is getting lost. We need to re-emphasise that and tell stories to our own children, so by the time they are going to secondary school, they have a habit of reading.
Z – Have you seen the Nubian Jak board game? It makes it fun.
AW – Yeah, there's no point in just hitting our children with all this information. You have to make it so they enjoy it.
Z – When you wrote about young people getting mixed up with crime, to me, that was talking about a form of enslavement.
AW – In a way, because the system kind of dictates to you that there is no way out. But there is a way out if you look within yourself and realise that you are a talented individual. And you should pursue whatever you are good at, rather than let the system dictate to you, you are rubbish, you can only be a road sweeper or whatever. That's what the Rastamen did for me. I could have gone down that avenue of having feelings of low esteem and lack of worth. It was those guys who told me, look, I've heard your lyrics, you are a talented individual, do what you like doing and be good at it. Go ahead and use that mind of yours.
Z – That book is crying out to be made into a drama.
AW – Yes. And not just mine, other writers too. There are writers like Courttia Newland, Diran Adebayo fantastic books, award-winning books. How come these books don't get made into television dramas? I have looked at other reasons, I have looked at logical explanations, and the only logical thing I can think of is that all the gatekeepers are white, and usually middle-class, and they still want to hold on to how we are seen on the screen. They want to control our image on the screen.
Z – How have you experienced Emancipation as an artist?
AW – By learning to write what I feel to write, rather than being restricted by what people will say. Not just white people. I have to keep true to who I am. To let that flower is an Emancipation in itself. If I can stay true to myself, that kid who came out of a home with those feelings inside, if I keep true to that guy that I was at the age of 13 or 14, that is freedom in itself. I think those years influence you so much – your political thinking, whatever. Your feelings of self-worth.
Z – So would you advise aspiring writers to stay true to themselves?
AW – Yeah. Don't try to take the quick route or write about things that you don't really believe in or don't love. Write about subjects that really interest you, that really grab you emotionally, rather than trying to make the quick buck, trying to fit into a style or a genre. Just be true to yourself and stick to what you think is right, and write about that.
Click here for East of Acre Lane.
Click here for Island Songs.
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