CONVERSATION WITH YAHAYA BARUWA

STORIESOF ADREAMER

by J. Paik

MASTER CLASS

Q: How did growing up in a family of 8 in Nigeria influence you as a person and as a writer?

A: You know the expression, “It takes a village to raise a child”? Well this was very true

of my upbringing. I did grow up in a family of 8 but we had uncles and cousins stay with us all the time so it was more like a family of 15. My family upbringing broadened my per-spectives on life, allowing me to view the world through various lenses and not just my own. I quickly learned that there are always many wiser, more incisive and smarter viewpoints besides my own. So my storytelling pulls from the life experiences of ev-eryone I have met. My stories reflect all those different perspectives.

Q: Nigeria is becoming known around the world for its booming start-up scene.

Why do you think this entrepre-neurial spirit is thriving?

A: Nigeria, with the largest econ-omy in Africa, has always been a bustling, energetic country,

with contributions from the immigrants coming from other countries in Africa as well as the Arab world to the North. Therefore, business ventures grow

quickly, whether it is in software devel-opment, fashion, entertainment, mu-sic or movie streaming websites like iROKOtv.com. Life is hard in Nigeria as is entrepreneurship. The financial infrastructure is not developed so the average businessperson learns to fight hard for success.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur and who have been your biggest sup-

porters along the way?

A: When my family migrated to Canada in 2001, I was only 12 years old. I ended up attending

York University. My experiences there combined with my family’s influence convinced me to become an entrepre-neur by my second year of university. You are a product of your upbringing and our parents thankfully were a great influence on us, teaching us to work hard for whatever we wanted in life. Inspired by their example, my siblings and I have all become businessmen. One brother owns an event rental com-pany, AllCargos, and another brother buys and sells tech equipment. We all support each other.

Q: Is there any particular mes-sage that you want readers in Nigeria to take away from your

Struggles of a Dreamer story?

A: Struggles of a Dreamer cap-tures the immigrant story of a Nigerian who leaves his country

for the West in pursuit of a better life but encounters the reality of the mod-ern world. Nigerian people can have a fanciful notion of what life is like out-side of Nigeria. I want to convey that the migrant dream is really possible and opportunity does exist abroad, but only if you work hard for it as you would anywhere else in the world. You don’t just show up and expect everything to be presented to you.

Q: You were a guest on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight in 2014 to promote Struggles of

a Dreamer. How did this televised op-portunity come about?

A: I was in the studio audience for GST one day with a friend of mine, Richard Cosh, who

co-founded the non-for-profit The Canadian Project. I managed to ask George, “How do I get on your show?” to which he replied, “I will give you my email and you can contact me.” In dis-belief at how easy this sounded, Rich-

MASTER CLASS

ard suggested to me that we make a pitch video. So we went downtown and filmed some interviews, asking strangers about their greatest strug-gles and similar themes found in my book. To make the long story short, we gave George the pitch and he got back to us agreeing to have me on his show! That happened the last week before the show stopped airing so we caught him just in time.

Q: A: One of the most inspiring au-

thors for me is actually Dr. Se-uss. I received Oh, The Places

You‘ll Go! for my 23rd birthday from a

friend of mine. Paulo Coelho is another author who I derive inspiration from. He wrote The Alchemist which is around 200 pages long, so around the same length as my own book. I have read it more than 50 times and modelled my book’s structure after it because its simple style was an example to follow.

Q: Who were some of the people who were instrumental in get-ting your writings published?

A: In addition to my family, I’m thankful for all the people who contributed to my crowdfunding

efforts. I didn’t go with a traditional publisher; I started my own publishing company (Tapestry House Publishing) as an entrepreneur because I wanted

to maintain the rights for my books. I needed to raise money and didn’t want to go to the bank to get a loan so I start-ed a crowdfunding campaign instead.

Q: You have been as involved in the sales and marketing pro-cess of your books as you have

in the writing. Why did you decide to take on so much of the promotional work yourself?

A: As an author and entrepreneur, if I can develop a very effective sales system then I no longer

have to depend on publishers and their system to make it work. I didn’t want to be boxed in to sticking to their rules and regulations, or their way of doing things. Self-publishing allows me to

Which authors have been an inspiration to you?

MASTER CLASS

make sure my voice and opinions are heard, instead of a publishing company telling me what to do. So I am involved throughout the process; I can maintain my independence and develop my own publishing company.

Q: Can we expect to see Strug-gles of a Dreamer on the silver screen one day?

A: One of our short-term goals is a feature film based on Tunde: A Man of Lost Ambition which is

the second book in the Struggles of a Dreamer series. The screenplay draft is completed but we are currently rewrit-ing it. I‘m actually going to be collabo-rating with an up-and-coming Nigerian director based here in Canada. I will be

part of the production team and will be raising some of the required funds. We will be pursuing the independent route and seeking a big name distributor such as Entertainment One or MGM, but at this point in time we are still in the screenplay development phase so we do not have that on paper yet.

Q: You ar e planning to pr int the world’s largest novel. W hat was the thought be -

hind this pr oject ?

A: Printing the largest novel in the world is a way for us to get pub-licity and separate ourselves

from the millions of other books that you see in bookstores. My strategy is to display the biggest book anyone has

ever seen in their entire life for them to think, “I want to read that book!” I be-gan crowdfunding for the project and the process is still underway. I will take the book on tour once it is completed.

“Self-publiShing allowS me to make Sure my voice and opinionS are heard.”