My novel is filled with metaphors regarding conflict in Nigeria, Africa, says Nathaniel Bivan

* ‘Gateway for me to pour out what I couldn’t report as a journalist’
By Irene James
SPINE and Label Bookstore’s ‘In Convo’ book chat featuring Nathaniel Bivan hosted by the illustrator, cartoonist and editor Abdulkareem Baba-Aminu was a gathering of Abuja’s literati. Novelists and poets that included Richard Ali, his wife Star Zarah, Olumide Olaniyan, Edify Yakuzak and several others were present. In conversation with Baba-Aminu, Bivan the author of the newly released speculative fiction novel, Boys, Girls and Beasts said his novel is layered with metaphors that depict a lot of what is ongoing in conflict-ridden parts of Nigeria, West Africa and the world.
“My book became the gate-way for me to pour out a lot of what was either unreported or under-reported,” he said. “I covered conflict in Kaduna, Niger, Plateau and Borno states up to a point that I suffered some level of trauma.”
By 2022 Bivan was hard at reporting solutions and conflict in Kaduna and he recalled a particular experience at a place called Kakau Daji where bandits had kidnapped more than a dozen worshippers. As he approached the deserted church and walked the grounds, he found that he was eager to leave because he was conscious of the fact that this was where gun-wielding terrorists had been just days before.
As he further explained, “Sometimes, I return home and experience this feeling as though those who committed heinous crimes of terror that I had just covered in the field were lurking behind me. It was traumatic. For a while I stayed away from reporting such, because I was a features editor at HumAngle Media then. To some extent, it helped me heal.”

Nathaniel Bivan (right) making a point at the book chat in Abuja
Baba-Aminu asked Bivan about his writing process and if he’d had disagreements with the editors on anything at all during the editing. Bivan explained that he’d started writing the novel in 2018 while working at Daily Trust, adding, “I’d come to work as early as eight or nine in the morning while most of my colleagues were yet to arrive. And because we journalists usually came in from the field at around 10.00am or 11.00am or beyond, it gave me the time to put in some work before the newsroom became active.”
Sometimes, Bivan wrote in the early hours of the morning at home before coming to the office at Utako, Abuja. He applied a similar method later in the evening where he stayed a little bit late than some of his colleagues to write on nonproduction days when the weekend team closed early.
However, by the time he moved to HumAngle Media, the book was already far gone, but that was when he received some on-the-ground experience and encountered children and especially women who had lived in the same space with Boko Haram as captives.
Zarah asked Bivan an intriguing question about whether he is able to separate the creative writer and the conflict journalist while he wrote, and Bivan said that was impossible because his writing is a product of who he is, as a journalist. On why he decided to take the speculative fiction route, the author stressed that he never planned to and that it simply happened.
“It was triggered by a story a neighbour, who is from Adamawa, told me about a tribe in her state whose natives assume the nature of certain animals in the spiritual realm and sometimes even in the physical. That blew my mind and I decided to explore it. That was the point where the entire narrative took a strong turn to speculative fiction and set the tone for almost everything that played out.”
One of the high points of the book chat was when a young woman in the audience insisted that Bivan and the illustration of a half man half tiger on the cover bore close resemblance. She wanted to know if it was the author or it was mere coincidence.
“That would be a question for the designer to answer,” Bivan responded with a smug smile.
Days after the book chat, Masobe Community on Instagram shared a photo of the book cover and the author, raising the same question and asking viewers to comment. Many thought that there was a close resemblance between the author and the cover illustration. But whether this was intentional or a coincidence is still a subject that’s up for debate.
During the conversation, Spine and Label Bookstore gave out free coffee to its first 10 guests as well as gifts. Bivan, who also got a gift package had the privilege of cutting a cake designed with the cover of his book atop it.

Nathaniel Bivan signing copies of Boys, Girls and Beasts to book enthusiasts
“I’ve had a great time,” Bivan told his enthusiastic audience. “I look forward to having more and more of such engagements in the near future. So far I have been hosted by the Plateau State Writers’ Association, Fasaha Café and Rambling Thoughts Book Club, and now Spine and Label Bookstore. I look forward to Lagos and Port Harcourt and attending festivals within and outside Nigeria.”
Bivan worked as a reporter and rose to become Arts Editor at Daily Trust newspaper for almost a decade. He served as Regional Editor, Northwest/Northcentral regions and Features Editor at HumAngle Media for about half a decade where he encountered men, women and children who had suffered the brunt of Boko Haram insurgency as well as banditry in the Northwest. In 2022, he published a memoir on the Senior Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan on Christian Religious Affairs, Venerable Obioma Onwuzurumba entitled My Time As Chaplain: An Account of Venerable Obioma Onwuzurumba, a chapbook titled 20 Love Letters to the Christian Fiction Writer, and children’s picture storybook Flower Blind courtesy of the African Storybook project in 2018. Boys, Girls and Beasts, published by Masobe Books is his debut novel. It was released on November 15, 2024 to some acclaim.
* James is a writer and graphic artist