I’m happy to be a part of a global virtual book tour for the recently published picture book Amadi’s Snowman (read my review). Paris-born Katia Saint Novet-Lot was born to a Spanish mother and French dad. She currently living in Hyderabad, India, but is quite the globe-trotter and possesses a valuable international perspective, which shines through our interview. 
Welcome to Literary Safari, Katia. I enjoyed reading your book and was struck by your international background and living experiences which I thought bring a unique perspective to your work. First off, I’d love to know: What was your inspiration for the character of Amadi?
My husband’s work at UNICEF and the problems they had to keep boys in school, in the south eastern part of Nigeria where we lived, are the inspiration behind the character of Amadi. It is a real problem, especially in Igbo land, where trading is part of the traditional culture. Boys tend to drop out of school in big numbers to earn quick money doing street business.
Did you write and revise the book while you were living in Nigeria? How did it change after your left Nigeria?
I wrote the story while living in Nigeria, and it went through several revisions, there. But I continued working on it after we moved to India. It was my very first story, and I had a lot to learn in terms of story arc, especially the emotional arc. Why and, most importantly, HOW did Amadi reach the decision to learn how to read, when he was so adamant about not wanting to at the beginning of the story? There had to be a progression or the decision at the end would not be satisfying, nor feel real and believable.
The description of how Amadi eats his mango is so right on. So is the choice of having him be from the Igbo business community. Tell us about the role of research and observation in writing a children’s book.
Thank you, Sandhya. As I mentioned above, Amadi could only be an Igbo boy. We lived in Enugu, which is in the heart of Igbo land; this was the former capital of the short-lived Biafra Republic. As for the mango, I happen to have a daughter who LOVES mangoes (who doesn’t love mangoes, anyway?) and I have many pictures of her savoring the fruit, sticky juice running down her chin. Of course, observation and research are extremely important. Even after I had left Nigeria, I continued to send many questions to a friend in Nigeria. I wanted the story to be perfectly authentic in every way. As for observation, I think that anyone living with a writer will tell you that we’re terrible, because we look at everything and everyone with a writer’s eyes, meaning we’re always thinking : mm, I could use this in a story, and/or filing images, words, sentences, and situations in a corner of our mind (when we are not scribbling furiously on any scrap of paper, to not forget).
Most middle class people – and certainly expats – living in non-Western countries have household help. A garden boy. The children of the maid servants who accompany them to work. The watchman’s son. What were your observations about the role of education and reading in their lives and did you have the opportunity to get involved to effect some change on a microlevel? Anything you’d like to add about your India experience is also welcome.
Another inspiration for Amadi’s Snowman has been my daughter’s nanny, in Nigeria. She is illiterate, but she sent her daughters to school, and they have a good education and are doing very well. This is one reason I insisted for Amadi’s mother to be a poor, hard-working mother (as opposed to an educated middle class woman.)
In India, we have had a big handicap, bigger even than in Nigeria, and that is language. Telugu is spoken, here, in Andhra Pradesh, and people who work for us, when they understand a little English, don’t speak it enough for us to really be able to communicate to the point that we know very much about their lives. We had an example, though, of a nanny who worked for us, and her teenage daughter fell really ill after seeing a witch doctor, and we had her admitted in a hospital. That child was mentally challenged, and the mother refused to let her out of the house. She had never been to school, even though schools are free. The doctor who saved her (she narrowly escaped death) was very harsh when he spoke to her mother. He told her that he himself came from a small village, and he’d gone on to become a doctor, and it was unforgivable of her to not have sent her child to school.
The way people understand education depends on so many things. My own mother never went to school, and her mother didn’t really have a good reason either for not sending her daughters to school. My mother always deplored it, and not only was she very strict about her children getting a solid education, she even taught herself to read and write when she was in her forties. What I’m trying to say, here, is that education ought to be a top priority everywhere in the world.
How long were you based in Nigeria? What similarities do you notice between literacy challenges there and in India, where you are now based?
We spent over three years in Nigeria. I would say that one of the big challenges in both countries is the quality of schooling. It’s not enough to have free schools ; these schools have to actually teach something. Also, there is the problem of language in former colonies. In Nigeria, English is the official language. In India, English is one of the official languages. How to find a healthy balance between keeping traditional languages alive, and yet making sure that children have access to long term and good quality education, and master English, without which they can’t really hope to go very far, be it within the Nigerian or the Indian system?
This is your first picture book. Tell us about the unexpected challenges of this process. When you have a message – such as the power of books – that you want to communicate, how do you walk the fine line between not sounding preachy and yet having a moral?
I honestly didn’t think about the message in that way, at least not consciously. When my husband told me about these kids dropping out of school, something just stuck in my mind, and I heard this boy’s voice having a conversation with a character in a book. I went along with him. A friend from my critique group once told me that a lot of my stories at the time had something to do with reading, and words. I had never noticed, but she was right. I guess I needed to get that out of my system. Now, I seem to have moved on to other themes 
What are you working on now?
I have three pictures books at diverse stages, two have gone through several revisions, one has just hit “the road” again, the other is almost ready to be sent out again as well, and the third will soon be. I’ve been working on a Young Adult novel set in Nigeria for quite a while, but I find it hard to write longer works. Still, the subject has never left me any respite, so I expect I’ll have to go all the way with it. And I’m enjoying the learning process, anyway. A lot of my stories revolve around themes of cultural diversity, and/or displacement, and finding one’s center while moving around. The issues of Third Culture Kids have been flying under the radar for a long time. These children are statistically the fastest growing population in the world, today, and yet, they’re virtually absent in children’s literature. I hope this changes : Kimberly Willis Holt has just written three novels with a Third Culture Kid protagonist, Piper Reed, Navy Brat. And with Obama – a former Third Culture Kid, himself – so much in the news, and who knows, maybe the next US president, I hope the subject finally gets a chance. It is impossible to live in different countries and not feel the need to contribute to opening up the world for absolutely everyone.
What has been the response to your book in India?
I have only visited one school, so far, and I must say that the principal and founder of that particular school, Shanta Rameshwar Rao, is a wonderfully open-minded and rather unorthodox character. She is a children’s books author, herself, (she’s known for her retelling of ancient Indian tales) and she literally jumped at the opportunity of having me come to her school. I visited two 4th grade classes twice, there, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. They loved Amadi’s character, and it was great to be able to discuss not only the importance of reading, but also some of the similarities between India and Nigeria.
Too often, Africa is considered the poor, dry, uneducated and hopeless continent. For instance, the kids didn’t seem to realize at first that in India, too, there are many children working in the streets, earning little money washing car windows, doing errands at the market or what not. Once they thought about it, they realized that, indeed, they see these kids all the time when they sit at a traffic light. We also compared foods and realized that fried plantains are eaten in South India as well as in Nigeria. I’m trying to interest a big bookstore chain to carry the book, at the moment. We’ll see how that goes. Books in India are quite cheap, compared to the US, so there is that aspect to consider. I’m also curious to see whether a story about an African boy is likely to find its way into Indian bookstores. There is a lot of prejudice, here, about Africa. My husband, who’s not African, but happens to be black, has certainly had to deal with a lot of it, in the past four years. It has gotten much better now that government people and such know him, but it took quite a while. No matter: children are our hope for tomorrow, and if books like Amadi’s Snowman can make even a tiny difference, I’ll continue to try and bring it to as many children as I possibly can, whether I’m in India or elsewhere.
