ABSTRACT
This chapter is the invaluable final interview Isidore Okpewho gave on Christmas Eve, 2012. At that time, he was slowly coming around from the illness that had severely incapacitated him, but which, sadly, would eventually claim his life four years after, on September 4, 2016. Specifically intended to be published in this anthology, the interview was supposed to focus on his life and time. However, a last-minute decision on the interviewer’s part to begin with a discussion of Okpewho’s craft as a writer and scholar yielded great insight from the astute scholar so much that the subject became the heart of the interview. Nevertheless, one of the revelations from the interview is Okpewho’s “confession” of how his bi-ethnic identity has informed a good deal of his creative writing, especially in the representation of the political tensions surrounding the management and control of natural resources in Nigeria. Readers of his later scholarly works such as Once Upon a Kingdom and Blood on the Tides will also appreciate the cultural, if not political, belief behind his persistent interest in studying the narratives from communities with hegemonic powers looming over them. Finally, it is only fitting that a prolific artist and scholar known to pursue several projects concurrently, in this interview, even while recovering from an incapacitation that would eventually overpower him, was willing to share the broad outlines of a story that he was already thinking about. With Professor Isidore Okpewho, it was always about stories.
