Cal Avono is a faculty member at the Department of English, Université de Lomé and the chair of Anglophone studies research team. He is the chief editor of Uirtus, a peer-reviewed journal of humanities and social sciences. He is a Fulbright research fellow and the author of about 25 scholarly articles. He also authored Condamné avec souci (2016), a novel in French. As the director of the university’s language center, he cooperates with Imperial English UK and with international organizations to establish the English learning and a Master’s studies in conference interpretation in French and English. He loves poetry and thinks it is all life, for poetry outlives death.
Kristina Marie Darling: In addition to your achievements as a poet, you have published a novel in French. What can poets learn from prose writers about storytelling and crafting a compelling narrative?
Cal Avono: I think that poetry is the greatest and the highest achievement in literature. Therefore, novelists have not much to teach poets. Prose writers tell people a story. Poets make them tell their story to themselves. The depth of poetry throughout the ages and across cultures is not yet fully realized. Perhaps for these reasons–the high esteem in which I hold poetic craft–my French novel reads more as poetry.
KMD: For you as a poet, writer, and scholar, what is the relationship between literature and social change?
CA: Literature is the only field of study that brings people back to themselves, encouraging introspection and self-examination. All genres of literature are similar in this regard. Novels, poems, plays, and literary criticism make people reflect and question themselves physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Find a way to literature, you will cause society to change for the better.
KMD: You are an alum of the Fulbright program, and have also championed international exchange and collaboration at the Université de Lomé in Togo. Can you speak to the importance of cross-cultural exchange for your creative process?
CA: The Fulbright program I (un)fortunately discovered (only) late after my PhD. It is the best program ever built for fostering interdisciplinary encounters, mutual understanding, and the enrichment of world cultures. On a personal note, the cross-cultural exchange fostered off by the Fulbright program lives on in my life every single day. It has been highly significant for my work as a writer and scholar. Being from a culture painted differently by German, British, and French brushes, I can only measure the highs and lows, and the joys and pains, of a life both imagined and real, through the power of creativity and collaboration.
KMD: On a related note, what advice do you have for young writers and artists hoping to champion international exchange and collaboration in their communities?
CA: One important observation (from my own community) is that the youth seems less and less interested in writing and art. Reasons vary and this is not the place for discussing the issue. However, it is important to emphasize the fact that, if one really wants to promote global exchanges, open-mindedness, and critical thinking about oneself, one’s community and the rest of the world, to encourage others to ask important questions about human relations–writing and art are really the only vehicles for this kind of exchange.
KMD: Tell us about your forthcoming scholarly monograph, which will soon be launched from Bloomsbury.
CA: I guess you mean Reading Multiple Consciousness: Exploring the Complexity of Postmodern Identity. That monograph, which I rarely call a book myself, is indeed the result of courage, faith, and the Fulbright program. The idea was born from discussions with my host professor Gregory Rutledge of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2012, an exceptional scholar who offered me another vision of the world. This work, which today benefits from the unique chance of seeing the light of day among the rather beautiful pens published the prestigious Bloomsbury, under the enlightened direction of Dr. Darling, Fulbright Specialist who visited my country in 2023, is informed by the complexity of the questions linked to the idea of the Self and Other, and the perception of this debate on both sides of the Atlantic. I would like to believe that this work will bring to myself and to readers a new framework for thinking through these questions of alterity, particularly within the context of postcolonial studies.
KMD: What else are you working on? What can readers look forward to?
CA: Right now, I am working more on scholarly articles but the next plan is to translate my novel into English and also focus on my poetry projects.
Thank you so much for this opportunity you offered me to talk to you and to your awesome readers.