Photo by Michele Comeau
Interview by Chimedum Ohaegbu
Zalika Reid-Benta’s collection, Frying Plantain (House of Anansi Press 2019), is her splash-making debut, already garnering a spot on the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The collection consists of twelve linked stories about Kara Davis, a quiet Jamaican-Canadian girl growing up in Toronto and navigating intergenerational familial conflict, friends who double as bullies, and the relationship between her heritage and her hometown. In this interview, Reid-Benta discusses complex interpersonal dynamics, why her writing resonates with so many, and the perils of teenhood.
If you could go back in time to writing and publishing Frying Plantain and give your past self advice, what would you say?
To trust my instincts. And to take my time, because I do remember feeling like I was running out, just graduating from my MFA and not having a deal right away. I was sort of beating myself up about that. So I would tell myself that everyone has a different process. If it’s taking longer than others, then it’s for a reason: just basically to have faith in myself as an artist.
What immediately drew me to the book was the title. (I’m Nigerian: we fry plantain, too.) Could you talk a bit about the importance of food in this collection?
When I first started writing my collection, I didn’t realize that food was such a huge part of it. I didn’t intellectualize it; it just kind of happened because it was such an intrinsic part of the world. When it came to the editing process, food did become a signifier for cultural identity. Especially in the story “Frying Plantain”, because [Kara’s] watching her grandmother, who is Jamaican, peel a plantain, and she’s realizing what she can’t do it the same way. I also do that with the non-Jamaican food—[there’s] poutine, a lot of McDonald’s, a lot of fast food. It was a way to show the melding of two different cultures for this third-culture kid. And it turned out that a lot of times when food is introduced, there’s also a moment of levity within the family unit. That’s something that they can get together. It’s something where everyone just shuts up and enjoys with each other.
Relatedly, the relationships in this collection are expertly drawn and complex, especially the familial ones. What was difficult about creating these connections, making them feel whole, and what was easier?
I think the difficulty was in showing tension and love at the same time. Because that’s just real to families—there’s always going to be some kind of tension. But also showing that there’s tenderness there, despite the fact that tenderness may not be overtly seen as tenderness, which is, again, where food can come in—they gave each other food as a way of showing affection. Even things that were very stern, like in “Inspection”—it’s the mother inspecting the daughter, and obviously, on the surface, it comes across as this constant nitpicking, but behind that there’s all these different reasons for it, all these different kinds of protections that she’s trying to instill or impart to her daughter. I feel like a lot of Caribbean women and African women resonated with that.
In terms of what was easy, I really, really like writing dialogue. So anytime that I got to write dialogue in a story, I felt like I [could] breathe.
In your CBC interview, you mentioned that you often start with dialogue. How has that impacted your writing style, your process?
I think that it generally gets me to be a more character-based writer, because I start off with interactions. And I don’t really feel like I know the world until people start talking. [With
“Snow Day”], I knew in my head that I wanted to start off with girls talking about their hair.
I also watch a lot of TV and movies, and I have since I was a kid, so that was an influence on me as books were. It makes me a more cinematic writer.
I really liked “Snow Day”, but it was also very difficult for me to read. It rang very true and very painfully so.
I actually never expected that “Snow Day” was going to be the story that people would come up and talk to me about.
So what do you feel is its draw?
I think it’s because at one point in our lives, we’ve [all] been bullied or had betrayals from friends, and I think that struck a chord with people. Teens and preteens can be really mean. Kids are super creative with the way that they can bully. And then, of course, near the end, when it gets a bit darker [with] sexual harassment, I think that’s something unfortunately that a lot of women can relate to, as well. So I feel like it was probably a story in which people felt seen.
There are a couple of times in the collection where Kara pretends not to see or purposefully turns away from something, like in “Before and After” with letting Anita save face in the washroom, or at the end of “Faith Community” with Kara’s grandparents. Can you talk a bit about the function of granting grace in Frying Plantain?
Thick skin and pride is a really big aspect of this collection. So for “Before and After”, [Kara] granting grace, in a sense, was she had the power to make fun of Anita like Anita had been making fun of her. The fact that she doesn’t is a testament to the fact that at that moment, she understands that everybody isn’t tough all the time. I think that’s probably the first time she’s been confronted with that. There’s just this unspoken understanding that we don’t talk about these things.
On the flip side of that, with “Faith Community”, it was sort of the same idea, where they all know that not everything is okay—everybody knows about this affair. But why bring that up? Why air that? And it’s not for [Kara’s grandfather], it’s for her grandmother, because her grandmother is happy, her grandmother’s dancing, her grandmother’s cooking, her grandmother likes having everybody together. So why should she take that away from her grandmother in this moment? Especially considering that her grandmother was ranting and complaining, but she pretends that she wasn’t, because they’re all pretending for this one moment. Sometimes that’s what life gives you. So you can take it or you can leave it, and Kara decides to take it.
What is a question you wish interviewers would ask you? Or wouldn’t?
I don’t like being asked if it’s based on my real life—that’s the one question where I’m like, Please don’t ask that. But I’m not sure what I like to be asked, because I think I’m still learning how to talk about my work.
Could speak a bit to how important community was in the writing of this?
Mentorship definitely was something that was really, really important. Because writing is a solitary process, for sure. But you still need to bounce your ideas off of other people. And writing can be a really masochistic process at times, so to have people who critique but aren’t critical, but also to have that encouragement, was something that I really, I really appreciated and needed. George Elliott Clarke being a poet was fantastic for me, because he really got me to think about my word choice, so I was a stronger writer for that. When I’ve had women as my mentors, that’s also been really great. Because for a while, especially during my MFA, I just kept getting, Where’s the men [in the collection]? Where’s the father? Then just having one woman be like, who gives a shit about the men? Like, yes, great, thank you.
I feel sorry for my friends when I’m in writing mode, because it’s just me word-vomiting on Gchat, and them not saying anything, and me being like, okay, good talk — just having a conversation with myself, and them being like, Yes, okay, glad I could help. And, of course, having my mother as a driving force of encouragement was really great—she was the one who told me about MFA programs, she was the one who encouraged me to make my writing into an actual career. She really pushed me to go all the way.
So what’s next for you?
Oh, man, I’m trying to finish this young adult novel. I don’t really know how that’s going. It’s completely different from my collection. It’s like a fantasy romance novel, and I’m trying to infuse Jamaican folklore with it and West African spirituality. It’s this whole thing. I was looking at it last night and I was like, is this even making any sense? So I have no idea where I’m at with it. But that is what I’m working on.
I’m a big speculative fiction nerd, so wishing you good luck, because I want to read it! Last question—was there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
I just would like to say, I love that the title pulled you into my collection. I always love it when people come up to me or Instagram me or tweet me just kind of like, Oh, my God, it’s called Frying Plantain, I’ve got to read it. I feel like when you see that [title], even though you don’t know what it’s about, you know what it’s about. I’m always super happy when people are like, Oh, my God, I totally relate to this, being Canadian, being Jamaican, being Nigerian, being Guyanese, whatever, because I totally understand what this means. That’s something that I really value.
Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer whose work has appeared on CBC Books, in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, and in Apogee Journal. In 2011, George Elliott Clarke recommended her as a “Writer to Watch.” She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University in 2014 and is an alumna of the 2017 Banff Writing Studio. She completed a double major in English Literature and Cinema and a minor in Caribbean Studies at University of Toronto’s Victoria College. She also studied Creative Writing at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. Her debut story collection, Frying Plantain, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She is currently working on a young-adult fantasy novel drawing inspiration from Jamaican folklore and Akan spirituality.
Chimedum Ohaegbu attends UBC in pursuit of hummingbirds and a dual degree in English literature and creative writing. Her professional debut in Strange Horizons was longlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction, and her fondness of bad puns has miraculously not prevented her work from being otherwise published in The /tƐmz/ Review, The Capilano Review, SAD Magazine, and more. Website: chimedum.com. Twitter: @chimedumohaegbu.