Nnadi Cynthia invites us into the intimate spaces of ordinary life, where profound beauty often resides in the quietest moments. Her evocative story, “A Hundred Yards of Love,” tenderly unfolds the experience of a family facing illness and loss, drawing powerful parallels between the meticulous care of a garden and the complex human heart. In this conversation, Cynthia reflects on the wellspring of her emotionally rich prose, the unique capacity of literature to process profound trauma, and the enduring power of specific, lived-in details to forge deep connections with her readers.
1. Your story is embellished with vivid sensory details, realism, and emotional depth. What literary influences, if any, shaped your approach to this story’s themes and style?
I’ve always loved stories that transcend the two-dimensional nature of a page or a screen. I grew up reading series like C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, and Enid Blyton’s speculative children’s fiction. These books really expanded my imagination. In hindsight, my inclination toward elaborate detailing is probably rooted in acquired taste from reading similar books. It’s something I’ve continued to consciously improve. I think narrative specificity is one thing that makes stories more resonant.
I appreciate mundane details—like the way my mother’s face lights up when she talks about something she loves. She loves very few things more than her children, for whom she has sacrificed her better years, so it’s good to see her fuss over something else. When I write, I’m thinking: What are the things that move us? How best can I bring them to life in a way that feels so real? This helps me write heartfelt stories. A con of being emotionally driven is that I sometimes fall into the (bad) habit of sentimentality in writing, and I have to remind myself to simply write it as it is—raw and honest. No bulking, no exaggeration, no embellishing.
In A Hundred Yards of Love, I use the concept of gardening to explore deeper philosophies of life. It was inspired by a place—a person dear to me who lives in a serene, high-fenced house with a garden and a father who diligently tends to it. A lot of times, I draw inspiration from real life, probe the idea, and spin it into something else. At the heart of it, my stories will often express and elevate the intricacies of ordinary living, because I do think there’s a lot of joy in it. I mean, aren’t we all navigating our little lives in a big world?
2. Do you believe that literature has a unique ability to process and understand trauma, both personal and societal? How do you see your story engaging with this potential?
Definitely. Beyond the need for entertainment, people turn to literature for understanding and solidarity—to make sense of themselves and the world around them. Life is so complicated, and humans, as a collective, can only come so close to unraveling its mysteries. Trauma is one of those mysteries, and it’s deeply personal for each individual. It can be frustrating when you don’t even understand what you’re feeling or why you’re feeling it.
What literature does is give you a mirror and an anchor. It heightens self-awareness. When you can see yourself in a character—in their misfortune, their choices, and the resulting consequences—it becomes easier to analyze the situation from a third-person vantage point and extrapolate it to yourself. Literature is stepping out of your shoes, into another person’s, and being stunned by the realization that they fit almost perfectly. What joy to find that you’re not alone in your predicament. The experience of trauma, however, is much darker and deeper than this.
Literature is only a helping hand. In A Hundred Yards of Love, I engage this potential by portraying the quiet devastation of loss in end-stage chronic illness and the struggle to reconcile love with absence through the passing of the family patriarch, which occurs gradually. I explore grief as a lingering, ever-changing presence, as well as the role of memory and longing in processing it.
3. You’ve chosen to write about a family dealing with illness and loss. How do you see this story fitting into the tradition of ‘domestic realism’ or similar literary genres?
I mean, by definition, I think it fits. I don’t write to fit into genres; I write because I have these stories to tell. It’s only after I’ve penned a story that I begin to fully realize what I’ve done with it and which literary tradition it best aligns with. I’ve learned that the more in tune you are with your core as a writer, the more your stories tend to follow certain patterns.
Hence, this is my focus: a lifelong journey of self-discovery. Given my medical background, I often explore how chronic illnesses of the mind and body shape the relationships of sufferers with themselves and with the world around them. An exploration like this can inevitably lead me to write about family dynamics, for example. Because morbidity is associated with aging, there’s a good chance a parent is living with a chronic disease. A lot of the time, I write psychological realism. Ultimately, my stories are different shades of literary realism.
4. Looking back on the writing process, what was the most challenging aspect of bringing this story to life, and what did you learn from the experience?
I must admit, this story came very easily to me. I don’t recall any difficulty writing it. The point of view, narrative structure, choice of details and backstories, and characterization were all clear to me in terms of what I wanted to do. I wrote this story in less than three weeks during a fiction workshop. Shoutout to Yu-Mei Balasingamchow and all my classmates who supported my creative process with kind words and relevant feedback. I still return to those workshop letters every now and then.
However, I did have to rewrite Charles’s death, as it initially felt abrupt. The resuscitation scene wasn’t there at first. I had to expand the scene a bit to give Ada room to fully experience the final moments of her father’s life. That resuscitation scene was inspired by a real-life event. I interned at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, and one of the units I served in was the children’s emergency ward. One morning during ward rounds, we lost a little boy. His mother was right beside us. I saw her faith squirm into a chilling silence.
5. How important was it for you to get this story published in Akpata Magazine? Beyond the immediate emotional impact, what enduring questions or ideas do you hope your story will leave with our readers?
Akpata Magazine tends to publish these deeply human stories, you know. So, it’s not out of place to want my work published here. I just really wanted this story to get out there—for people to step into the world of this family and experience its specifics.
They’re seemingly ordinary people, but their hopes, dreams, and faith transcend the pages in a way that makes you feel like maybe there’s more kinetics to simple living than we imagined. There’s beauty and allure in the mundane.
In this story, I wanted to slow things down and isolate the characters—to some extent—from the chaos associated with living in a fast-paced world. That’s why the story is set where it is and doesn’t really stretch beyond that. That’s also why it’s written in a lyrical manner that explores what it means to exist beyond the surface.
A Hundred Yards of Love is a moment of quiet and an invitation to enjoy the orchestrations of childlike curiosity; we were all children once. It used to be simpler and easier before we grew up. Now look at us. I hope readers are endeared by this much-needed quietude.
6. In your opinion, what is the most powerful tool or technique a writer can use to evoke empathy and emotional connection with their readers?
I’d say detailing. If large rocks were to start raining right now, what details would adequately capture the horror of it—especially from the unique standpoint of the protagonist or narrator? Rocks falling from the sky would mean different things to a sick elderly man resting on his front porch and to a boy playing five-a-side street football against his mother’s instruction. If a divorcee is in court testifying against her abusive ex-husband, what would she be feeling? What details of their marriage would she recount, and how would that impact the story? How does she interact with her environment?
If you want to write a contemporary romance, you have to understand how people navigate connections in times like these. It’s about truly understanding the reality of the situation and making suitable creative choices that best bring it to life. As a writer, you shouldn’t linger or observe from the sidewalk.
Get in there—into the heart of the commotion, the heartbreak, the grief, and the thrill. What makes it beat the way it does? Writing meaningful prose requires this of you. If you can’t do the hard work of scrutiny and/or participation, then you don’t have much to offer the reader.
7. If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring writers who are grappling with difficult or sensitive themes, what would it be, and why?
It’s a fragile world. Writing about sensitive themes shouldn’t be a special or outlandish thing. It’s all around us—existing, in itself, is rather uneasy and precarious. Be observant, be inquisitive, be involved, and be aware—not only of things that directly concern you. It’s a big, big world, and there’s so much going on. There’s so much to be said.
Most importantly, keep improving your craft. The more you learn, the more you’ll understand how to tell the stories that matter to you. It’s not enough to want to tell these stories, but—as Jennifer Makumbi says in her prize-winning title—to tell these stories properly.
Good luck with your writing endeavors, and please be gracious to yourself and your journey. It’s a lifelong, nonlinear process.
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