Medivoice: Hello, dear Medivoicers! You’re highly welcome to another sizzling, and dazzling edition of Writer’s interview. We have with us a talented brilliant writer who doubles as a visual artist from the Magna Medicos class. Stay with us!
So, Can we meet you?
Fortune : Okay. I’m Fortune—Fortune Akande. A writer & a visual artist. I’m honored by this interview, to be honest. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Medivoice: We are also honoured to have you. Do you have a nickname, as we learned you go by the above in your writings?
Fortune: nicknames… omo i’ve never been lucky with those. i don’t have any. But, although it is now widespread, I do feel a sense of identity when I’m called “Idán”, haha.
Medivoice: Wow! Idan! When did you start writing ?
Fortune : if you mean “when I finally considered writing a career path for me”, then that was around April 2022.
Medivoice: Great! That was during the strike. What prompted your writing?
Fortune : In retrospect, I realised I have always had a facility for the arts—history, literature, visual arts. But it was an extended period of solitude in the last quarter of 2021 that really got me fired up.
Medivoice: You also engage actively in visual arts.’Which influenced which?’
Fortune: They’re both independent of each other, my writing & visual arts practices. I think that’s what make me multidisciplinary, rather than inter-. Moreover, there are traces or implications of one in the other and vice-versa, though. The same with other fields in the art I look forward to exploring.
Medivoice: Okay. Writers are readers, they say. Do you have a favorite book?
Fortune: At the moment, that should be V.S. Naipaul’s In a Free State.
Medivoice: Since we asked about your favorite book, it is essential to know your favourite author too. So, who is it?
Fortune: hmm, tough one. no, i’m kidding haha. Alice Munro, easy. She’s… brilliant! However, kudo to those that deserve honorable mentions: Lydia Davis, and Rushdie…
Medivoice: Alice Munro, the Canadian. She won the Nobel prize over a decade ago. What influences your writing, or do you succumb to spontaneity?
Fortune: No, I think it’s my environment. I pay attention a lot. I try to, at least. Films, too. Both factors for the visceral substance of my work. As for the actual practice of writing—style, panache, form—that is, of course, books and writers—the good and otherwise.
Medivoice: The essence of reading as a writer keeps recurring. So, what genre would you say your writings fit?
Fortune: That’s fiction, sir. I started with poetry. Then I tried my hands on nonfiction over a long period, too. Now, driven by the same credo, I just want to tell stories.
Medivoice: An author in that genre that aligns with you?
Fortune: You might’ve guessed that by now. Yeah, Alice Munro.
Medivoice: Bad! I didn’t. Which do you prefer? Prose or poetry? (I hope I am not starting a debate).
Fortune: Prose, sorry.
Medivoice: I guessed. Further, the best piece you have ever written?
Fortune: favourite, that is. That should be the last thing I wrote. rain in january. it’s a kind of ekphrastic, absurdist, nonfiction. i feel strongly that it’s a precursor for the new shape my stories would start to take.
Medivoice: Ultimately, what is your perception about life?
Fortune: Omo… I’m not going to lie, I can’t pick one. Life is so many things. One interpretation doesn’t do it. Or maybe I’m still figuring that one out.
Medivoice: Fortune, thanks for honoring us with your insightful responses. May your nights be starry, and your roads, be paved. You can read Fortune’s rain in January, here.
Finally! Dear Medivoicers, thank you for staying with us in today’s amazing episode. Till the next time we meet… Stay jiggy! Sharp! Sober!
Also, do not forget to eat, and sleep well.
Moreover, click for more captivating writer’s interviews, and amazing creative pieces.
Leave a Reply