Maanu alazwa amukasuumbwa.
Wisdom comes even from a small anthill.
Proverbs are shapeshifters, changing their meaning depending on both speaker and listener. Even a revisitation by the same person can render them anew. When I first encountered the above Tonga adage, I read it as advice to appreciate all sources of writing inspiration—an instruction to be attentive, even to the minuscule. I was working on my first novel then and invoked the proverb to make a muse of my immediate surroundings and build a story. As my writing evolved the proverb spoke more to my process, which—then just as now—involves reading a lot of work I admire to learn the mechanics of literary creation by navigating the worlds created by others first.
Now, seven years after those initial attempts at story-making, the proverb encapsulates the importance of habit for me. It is often said that the “successful” writer is made not by writing but by dedication to the habit of writing and nourishing what fuels the creative spirit. That habit for me is to write a little every day, to listen to the music my brain has learned to associate with my writing time, because the big thing I am aiming for (the finished story, poem, book) comes from even the small anthill of a few daily words.
—Mubanga Kalimamukwento, author of Obligations to the Wounded
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024)