An interview with Norman Samuda-Smith...

I first started to enjoy writing when I was around 10 years old. My English teacher first spotted my talent. She used to say "Norman's got an amazing imagination." Essay titles would be written on the board. The class would then choose one that inspired them.

Most of my stories would go on and on and never end. My mother would encourage me to read more. But I was more interested in writing my own stories, rather than reading someone elses.

Everyday things that happen around me. Especially what’s happening at the moment with gun crime in the community also newspaper articles.

Mainly families. And the love within a family unit.

A younger Norman

Not particularly, I don’t read that much to tell you the truth. Anything that I do read is mainly history and reference books.

Back in the day before I started writing I read a novel by Sylivia Sherry called ‘A Pair of Jesus Boots’. I read it. Enjoyed it. And thought, this is what I would like to do. She was from Liverpool and she used a Liverpudlian accent to bring the characters out in her story. I thought that’s the kind of style I would like to use write my stories.

I feel really privileged to have that title. I think to myself "oh my God I’ve made history". Yeah I’m proud.

I didn’t know I was the first black British born novelist until a friend told me in 1985. I then saw it on the internet and that confirmed it for me. I couldn’t believe it!!

However I now feel every time I write something new I have to prove something.

Back then there was always black West Indian writers, but there was only the odd one or two black British born writers. I think we have come a long way and more are being published.

What I would like to see in big bookstores like Waterstones is instead of a black fiction section, black or Asian writers are in alphabetical order mixed with all the other writers rather than being catergorised.

Yes I think so. Even when my book ‘Bad Friday’ was published in 1982 there was a lot of black writers around but they never had the confidence to get their work published. Sometimes us writers write something and stick it underneath the bed. We think it’s great and but are afraid of bad comments from anybody else.

There has always been talented young writers in Birmingham. Whispers in the Walls picked the cream of the crop and pushed them out there. It just goes to show that the West Midlands has got loads of talent it’s not all in London. But we need more publishing houses in Birmingham so writers have more of a choice of where to go.

Bob Marley

Yes good times !!! (laughter) In the 1970’s reggae was king. Reggae music inspired me to read my history books to learn more about my roots. People like Marcus Garvey, Paul Boogle, William Gordan and all the other Jamaican national heroes we never learnt about in school.

I have a lot of respect for the reggae artists of that era like Burning Spear, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh to name a few, who encouraged me through their music to read more history books.

I did twist up my hair and become a dread myself. At the time I wanted to look at my faith or God through my own spectacles. I was raised in the Roman Catholic church. The Rastafarian faith just made me see God in a different way.

When I write, I put a bit of myself into the characters of the story.

I wrote the story first in English but it just didn’t sound right. Most black writers write their narrative in English and then they convert to Patois when it comes to the dialogue. So I thought I would take it to the next level and do the narrative in Patois as well as the dialog.

The only worry I had is whether the reader would understand it. But nowadays everyone is speaking Patois. But they don’t know how to read it.

I showed the story to my daughter at the time it was published. She looked at it but couldn’t understand it. So I read it to her and she was able to enjoy it. She was then able to take the book away and read it herself.

I love painting pictures with words. Even when you think you’re going to pull your hair out and you can’t get a certain paragraph right or your trying to portray something so to make the reader see it through their eyes. It's a labour of love, you just keep on plugging away.

Norman Reading from Whispers in the Walls

I’m revisiting my first novel ‘Bad Friday’ and writing a trilogy for it. I was 17 years old when I originally wrote the story. So the actual novel is seen through a 17 year olds pair of eyes.

I’m keeping the same basic ingredients of the story but looking at it through adult eyes.

The first novel will be called ‘Bad Friday Revisited’ then a follow up will look at the same characters when they’ve left school up until the age of 19/20 using a basket ball theme. This one will be called ‘The Basketball Chronicles’. Part three will be called ‘Return of the Prodigal Son’ based on the friends being all grown up and are now fathers and mothers and how they deal with parenting. Part one ‘Bad Friday revisited’ should be finished by the end of November.

I am also going to start writing my dad's biography called Jamerican. He's had a very interesting and heartbreaking life. Although an absent father he raised me through letters, telephone calls and emails. He is the ultimate man that I would love to be. I could never be like him but I can write a biography about him.

Keep writing and don’t give up, the break will come one day. It’s not about the money it’s about the love of writing.

Norman reads his short story 'Rasta Love' from Whispers in the Walls

‘Rasta Love’, is a love story based in Small Heath Birmingham. It's set in the mid 1970s, amidst the energy crisis, mass union strikes, redundancies and record unemployment.

Within the black communities of England, a religious revival is happening, the Rasta musical uprising in Jamaica is influencing the first generation of black British-born youth to follow the teaching and glory of Rastafari...

Listen to Norman recite a exert of his story Rasta Love

Alternatively, read an exert from Norman's short story 'Rasta Love' here.

By email: birmingham@bbc.co.uk

By Post:
BBC Birmingham Website
Room 105/107
Pebble Mill Road
Birmingham
B5 7SD