James Ngwu Eze, one of the three shortlisted poets for the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Literature, has described his collection Unbind Me Now as a work born from outrage, anger and discontentment with Nigeria.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, Eze said he wrote the collection by taking on the voice of Nigerians and expressing their anger, pent-up feelings and disenchantment with the country.
“Unbind Me Now is a poetry of outrage, a poetry of anger and discontentment. In writing it, I assumed the position of a minstrel in the market square, appropriating the voice of my people, their anger, their pent-up feelings, their disenchantment with their country.”
He said private conversations among Nigerians often centre on the country and what has been achieved with its vast resources and potential.
“Because we all have had conversations, you know, in our private moments, amongst our friends, amongst our colleagues in offices, you know. And these conversations usually are about Nigeria and what we have been able to do with our Commonwealth.”
Eze said Nigeria had struggled for years to build the country many citizens had imagined, despite its enormous potential. “You will agree with me that in the past how many years now, we have struggled to build a country of our dreams.”
He described Nigeria as a country with enormous potential but said its ambitions had yet to fully translate into reality.
“And Nigeria is a huge geography of enormous potential. But so far we have presented this imagery of a dream with fruits in the sky, in the sense that the potential is sky, yes. It’s actually quite an ambitious concept.”
Eze said writers and others with a public platform had a responsibility to address difficult national issues. “I decided that, you know, this is a time for anybody, any walker of the imagination, anyone with conscience, anybody with a platform, to actually take to the public square and address these niggling issues of our nation’s world.”
He said Unbind Me Now should be read as a record of Nigeria as he has experienced it.
“So if you read Unbind Me Now, you will be reading a documented history of my Nigeria, the Nigeria of my time.”
Eze explained the emotional weight of writing the collection remained with him after completing it. “And when I finished writing it, I felt like someone who had just been hit by a moving vehicle that needed time to recover, because the enormity of the feeling that went into writing Unbind Me Now still makes me shiver, because I was telling the truth.”
He highlighted two poem in the collection, Voice of the Streets and another that focuses on the loss of meaning and identity. “In one of the poems, entitled Voice of the Streets, I actually donned the toga on Senegal’s main street, in the village square, proclaiming to my people that the time has come for us to address uncomfortable truths.”
He said another poem captures his attempt to give new meaning to things that have lost their names. “In another poem, I said, I come from a place where things have started losing their names, and my poetry shall rename them.”
Eze also spoke about what being shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature means to him and his work.
Eze emphasised that ecognition gives writers a sense of how their work is being received after the solitary process of writing. “Every writer is an audience. And being nominated for a prize, even making it up to a long list, it’s one of the first acts of validation, one of the first acts of having a sense of what the audience thinks about their work.”
He said reaching the shortlist represents personal validation and can encourage writers to continue creating. “So at that point, it’s personal validation for the writer, that what he or she did in solitude and could never tell how it would be received has now been seen by some and adjudged to be among, first as the chair of the advisory council has seen, the level of the long list, and in our case now, the short list.”
“So it’s validation and it’s also a spur and incentive to more writing, more creativity, and all that a writer does outside moments like this.”
He said the shortlisted collections also reflect an ongoing engagement with Nigeria and its challenges. “And also, what you’re trying to say, a viewpoint, as we have already said now, as you can see, they’re all about Nigeria. So it shows the ongoing conversation, ongoing engagement with the country.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
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