Something as Huge as a Future: Saverio Colasanto interviews Gladwell Pamba

Gladwell Pamba

Past work study student Saverio Colasanto talks with Gladwell Pamba, winner of 2025's Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction with her story, “Little Paradiso,” featured in our fall issue #232. They discuss child narrators, uncomfortable beginnings, and having a setting in mind before writing a story.

Gladwell Pamba is a Montreal-based writer from Kenya who has previously won writing fellowships including the International Literary Seminars (ILS), Oxbelly Writers’ Retreat Greece, & the CC Adetula Fellowship for African Women in Creative Writing. She is the winner of Ibua Manuscript Prize 2025 and has previously been nominated for the Best of the Net and longlisted for the Writivism Short Story Prize. Her works are anthologized while others appear in The Rumpus, The Northwest Review, Waxwing Journal, The Offing, and elsewhere. She is an MA graduate from Concordia University’s Creative Writing Program. She hopes to adopt a plant soon.


What inspired you to write "Little Paradiso"?

My first idea was writing a story set in an orphanage in Kenya. There have always been whispers about what goes on behind them. So like many stories I write, I had a setting in mind before I had the story. Often this is how I map my story, either by being obsessed with a specific setting or a specific character.

Cheche is not only incredibly brave, but wise beyond her years—is she based on someone you know?

I think that utilizing child narrators in many of my stories makes me create those that are smart in an innocent kind of way. My mentor—he is called Billy Kahora—once told me that to use child narrators, they had better be smarter than the average kid. But you know something? Children are smarter than we imagine. We underrate them. Cheche may not be based on someone I know, but there are so many like her out there.

Cheche’s insight that “our hands are really small to hold something as huge as a future,” is so profound. Was that line in your first draft, or did it come to you later?

This line came to me right away. But this line is something close to what my little sister, Gillian, said. She is a mechanical engineer and when doing her undergraduate, she couldn’t lift some equipment during the practical lessons, forcing the technician to help her sometimes. She lamented to me in passing, something in line with being worried about her future because of her small hands. I really like that line!

Are there any themes in "Little Paradiso" that you were particularly eager to explore?

Yes. I was exploring the concept of beginnings as uncomfortable, as destabilizing and as acts of closing one’s eyes, taking a leap and plunging into the dark. That blind kind of courage that is necessary. In Kenya, we describe this as "kama mbaya mbaya."

What does your writing process look like? Are you working on any short stories right now?

I am always working on something. Sigh. Right now, I am in the process of pitching my literary fiction novel to agents whose narrator is actually an eight-year-old. I am also working on several short stories. Prior to starting my PhD, I wrote every day, mostly one to two hours in the morning and in the evening. But now, I write about four times a week for an hour.

For my writing process, the ideas come anytime as an obsession with a setting or a character or a random line. I often write the first draft of a short story in the heat of the moment. This could be in my notes app, a notebook or laptop. Sometimes I finish the story in that first draft but sometimes the story collapses midway. I revisit these stories after a few weeks and rewrite them, revise or store them in a folder as resources that may find use in future.

 

Saverio Colasanto

Saverio Colasanto