SALT NO MORE (Level B1-B2 English Novel): Why I wrote the story
The year is 2011.
I am at my lowest point.
I have never reached this depth before.
Even when my parents died in a car accident at the age of 13, leaving the four of us in the hands of fate.
Even when I had to change homes frequently because my passions and ambitions were greater than my shoes.
2011 is different.
It is the year that changed my life.
It is the year that I definitely said goodbye to my past in order to embrace the future, with its hopes and uncertainties. It is the year that I finally took responsibility for my destiny, vehemently refusing to let life be like a game of luck where individuals have no choices.
2011 is the year I discovered antidepressants but it is also the year that I learned that pills could be replaced by creativity and that writing could be the gateway to stability. It is the year that I discovered the mental hospital, and psychiatry, and psychology, but it is also the year that I resolutely decided that the world’s chaotic madness would not get to me again. It is the year that words rooted me firmly into the ground and I deeply realised that I could not continue living if I didn’t write. 2011 is the year that Salt No More was born.
NyaMoyo! NyaMoyo!” Pearson’s voice tore through the empty house. It was a voice you couldn’t miss. A thick thunder-like echo that gave you the impression of power, permanent and unshakeable, defying time and everyone. It was very difficult to forget this voice once you heard it. Nor was it easy to forget the owner once you saw him. Voice and man became one and their presence was felt, even by the unwelcome visitors of the Mandas’ household. Rats, cockroaches and crowds of black ants.
I remember the day when I wrote those first words. The letters rushed out of my head, my eyes clouded with tears, my fingers shaking, my whole body fighting against this new exercise which was urged by the will to live. It was as if a dam of words had burst, sweeping across the screen in endless torrents, emptying my mind of its burdens and pains. It was dusk; my two daughters were playing on a carpet and my husband watched me, helpless to act. For how can one heal the invisible? How can a person understand what is going on in another person’s heart when its contents are carefully hidden from the world?
It took me nine years to finish and publish Salt No More because I didn’t have the courage and the stamina to carry the emotional weight of the book.
Last summer, I sat down and read the book with new eyes.
I asked myself how it had been possible to write such a story, drawing out the characters and their different stories, spending many a sleepless nights worrying about their fate.
It was as if those words had come from a different person, from another time, and that I had been given the privilege to share that incredible story.
Last summer I wondered if I would ever be capable of writing such a book again—it seemed such an impossible and momentous task to do. I thus became convinced that Salt No More had to be published and read because I was finally ready to see it go out into the world.
For several days, NyaMoyo had been battling to get rid of a strange feeling of foreboding that had seen its origins in the day their rooster died in its sleep. She’d woken up with a start, long after the sun had risen. When she stepped out of the house, the dew was long gone, sucked up by the blazing sun that thrust its ardent rays on Chalema. She lingered on the front steps, rubbing her eyes now and then, looking for signs but everything seemed normal.
One hen passed by with her brood of chicks, picking up bits of food. NyaMoyo followed them absent-mindedly until they disappeared behind the house. Left with another goal to seek, she hobbled about the yard, the dead mango leaves creaking and breaking under her bare feet. A thought crossed her mind and she turned back. After a few seconds, she stopped again, examined the open wound on her right leg. She then muttered to herself:
“Oh, never mind.” She went into the kitchen and picked up both her pail and Tionge’s and the two pieces of cloths that protected their heads from the cold metal. What was that girl doing anyway?
“Tionge,” she called, drawing the curtains from outside her bedroom window. “Wake up mzukuru. It’s time to go.”
Tionge rose from the mat, letting her old blanket drop on the floor, her sleepy eyes searching for her grandmother.
What is SALT NO MORE about?
Salt No More is a novel about pride, with its positive and negative consequences.
The story revolves around Pearson Chimaliro Manda who is a retired senior servant and now lives in his home village. This former Public Administrator is a born fighter. He is also proud and ruthless and his greed has no limits.
However, life in the village is tough for him and his source of pride has dangerously narrowed down to his daughter’s marriage to a successful lawyer in France.
Pearson soon learns that his favourite son-in-law is at the centre stage of a love triangle that will eventually rip his family apart.
The troubled patriarch struggles to accept this humiliation and betrayal. Unfortunately, his wife becomes an unwitting casualty in this psychological war that leaves no one unscathed.
Salt No More explores the effects of pride and failure on one’s psyche. It is also an emotional foray into the culture of dependency. From Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi to Chitipa and then France, the characters struggle against the choking power of impotency. Their need for others is pervasive; their lack of choice paralysing. Suffering is the norm and not many people strive to change their circumstances.
What happens when we have faced a problem for too long and there is no clear solution in sight? What happens when an individual has fought too long and too hard without any victory in sight?
Depression is what happens.
“Depression is the price strong people pay for fighting losing battles.”
Salt No More is a tough but worthwhile read. It tackles salient and current issues such as depression, domestic abuse, migration and immigration.
Yet, Salt No More is also a beautiful story about love, courage and resilience. It is a passport that allows us to enter into different cultures and explore their way of being. It is equally a lesson of humility and selfless compassion. This book ultimately allows us to face and confront our fears, so that we can become better and empathetic human beings, devoid of hate but full of creative purpose.
If you would like to read more about the novel Salt No More (Level B1-B2), you can find it here. I hope you love reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
May it foster and nurture your own creativity in the long run.
Thandi Ngwira Gatignol, author, Salt No More (September 2020)
Further Exploration:
Read: