“Taking my foot off the accelerator… ” – Edwige-Renée Dro (Côte d'Ivoire)

Recently a friend wrote a portrait about me. In it, she mentioned all those things I undertake in the following words:

She is Program Coordinator for AYADA Lab. She is a Miles Morland fellow working on her first novel, a translator, and a reader for the Commonwealth Foundation. All this takes place alongside running a library, residencies, literary judging roles, leading writing and literary translation workshops, publishing and writing short stories, her favourite genre, and translating.

She went on to add: I’m in awe of all Edwige does.

Put like that, even I am in awe of all that I do. Another friend once asked me, “How do you manage?” and I replied, “As long as I have 8 hours’ sleep, I’m good to go.”

It is very much true that I require 8 hours’ sleep – not 9, not 10 because then I get up groggy and tired and cannot do anything. So, eight hours. No less, and no more. On those occasions I have thought that I could do so much more if I slept less, probably after reading some silly books that tell you to sleep for five hours to achieve more, or when I have listened to capitalistic soundbites like, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I have not achieved more. In fact, I have ended up being tired and lethargic, and not productive at all, thereby not achieving anything. I have also come to realise that I do not do all the things I do because I’m on a course to achieve something, to be the Madam on Top; I’m just a passionate person and all the things I do are natural sequences of all those things I’m passionate about. 

When I take part in interviews or I’m asked to send my bio, you will always read these words: Edwige Renée Dro is a writer, a literary translator, and a literary activist. 

It isn’t the fact that I wrote down somewhere that I would become a writer, and then I would do A, B, C and D and move into translation. No, rather, these things have been natural sequences. I’m a conversationalist. I love politics and its impact on our lives and I’m that person who believes that everything is political. So in choosing to translate literature and other things that feed into my politics, I was interested in bringing in new voices to whatever conversation was happening then, and at that time, the conversation was very much focused on Africa being the future, the hopeful continent, the place to watch; these soundbites coming in very much from the West, and living in Africa, I’m very much aware of how the continent can still be confined to its linguistic borders, so I was interested in bridging the gap and for me, stories bridge gaps. 

When I set up the 1949 library in Yopougon Abidjan, I wanted to address the social inequalities I see in the city of Abidjan. I adopted a feminist approach because I was sick and tired of seeing the stories of African and black women being buried or the edges of their stories softened. And now, being the French content writer for Eyala is another one of those natural sequences.

During the reflection period for 1949, Eyala was one of those platforms I consulted often. I appreciated the accessibility in the language, the musings and interviews that called for reflection and conversations and pondering in a kind of let’s gather and chat way. The desire that shone through to have a collective where individuality shone. I enormously appreciated the fact that the platform was French-English bilingual – nobody was playing catch-up on that platform.

So, when Françoise asked me if I would be interested in being part of the adventure, absolutely, I said yes. I also said yes because this adventure would be getting me out of my comfort zone, if simply for the fact that I would be writing in French and not English. But again, writing in French at this moment in my life is another natural sequence. I have noticed that the conversations around feminism in Africa, and even around the world, are very much English language focused. Even references seem to be dominated by what is happening in the anglophone African sphere. It feels like a woe betide situation if you should not know some African feminists, all because said feminist had been lucky (what other word is there?) to be born in the English-speaking part of the continent. Like that time, I pretended not to know a particular big name because of that hegemony, and I was met with, “How can you not know…?” 

In the same way you don’t know Constance Yai, or Awa Thiam. What’s the problem?

So, as I let myself be taken in by these natural sequences, I want to embrace stepping outside my comfort zone: by writing in French, yes, but by also laying down some of the many things I do. Before I would be saying yes to this and that,but here I am, choosing to cruise along and take in all the sights, listening to all the sounds, and just being attuned to the natural sequences of the little things that make up life.