Sometimes, I am swept with a wave of sorrow, a quiet ache that whispers of loss, for I cannot write in the tongue that once cradled my ancestors’ stories. My name is Knight Fredel, and I wish to talk about that which has haunted the minds of my fellow writers and those who wish things were different.
My native language, now a fading echo, a ghost drifting on the winds of time, slipping ever further into the shadows of memory.
I consider turning to Igbo—a language that shares a kinship with mine, a distant cousin in the tapestry of African voices. But even the Igbo tongue, with its rich cadences and ancient alphabets, is slowly unraveling, its letters fading like ink washed away by rain. And I wonder, what good is my writing if it cannot reach the eyes of those it was meant for—my people, the Igbo speakers, the Yoruba and Hausa, the resilient hearts of Kenya, the vibrant souls of South Africa, the proud spirit of Uganda? My words are meant to be free, crossing borders like the wind, touching all who will listen.
Then it dawns on me: perhaps writing in English is not such a betrayal after all, though it is a language heavy with the weight of history, a language once wielded as a tool of conquest. Should I carry the bitterness of that legacy in my heart? No. I cannot let the old anger tether me to the past. They may have conquered our lands, imposed their words upon us, but I took that language and made it mine, like a tree grafting new branches onto ancient roots.
The question lingers in my mind, a shadow I cannot quite dispel: should I abandon my craft, forsake the pen because English is the only vessel I have to share my truths, my dreams, my soul? The answer eludes me, but I know this much—time is a relentless tide, wearing away even the hardest of stones, breaking hearts as it flows ever onward. We cannot rewrite the past, but we hold the quill that will script the future.
And so, I choose to write, to forge ahead, unbound by the chains of what was. For what comes next is ours to decide, ours to create, and perhaps, in the end, it is not the language that matters, but the stories we tell, the hearts we touch, the worlds we shape.
Written by Knight Fredel Ijere
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