Women Authors From Nigeria

"My main goal is to make progress on my current novel. I’d also like to play more with the new tools of artificial intelligence (AI) and have more conversations with writers about the future of writing in this age of AI, not just about what we might lose but what we might gain too."

"I love the innovative nature of Olumide Popoola’s writings across literary genres and so I’m very much looking forward to her forthcoming novel, Like Water Like Sea. I am also looking forward to Hala Alyan’s new poetry collection: The Moon That Turns You Back."

"I don’t have a single best book, but I enjoyed and learned a lot from the following: actor David Harewood’s memoir: Maybe I Don’t Belong Her: A Memoir of Race, Identity, Breakdown and Recovery; poet Hanif Abdurraqib’s Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest; and travel writer, Noo Sara-Wiwa’s Black Ghosts: A Journey into the Lives of Africans in China. I also enjoyed re-reading Hugh Masekela and Michael Cheer’s fabulous Still Grazing: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela. I also read a number of great manuscripts including two brilliant chapters from my brother’s work in progress: Common Property: An Intimate History of the 20th Century."

"Resist the temptation to write stories you’re expected to write and take inspiration from a wide array of art forms. Use all the tools available to improve your craft. Be innovative, be new! And when a door opens for you, hold it open for others. We all stand on the shoulders of giants and we’re stronger together than on our own."

"I’ve been surprised by how many young people as well as people who are not from the African Diaspora have found this book an inspiration and a comfort."

"This book came out of a personal search for greater perspective, inspiration and hope in the context of the current turbulence of our world. I’ve had the great privilege of getting to know the twelve people featured in this book, which allowed me to go beyond their public profiles to the more intimate conversations. They’ve all been an inspiration to me and as such I wanted to share their stories more widely."

"For my second novel, I did almost no historical research. With Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun I played much more with form and with voice than I’d done in the past. As such, it was particularly gratifying to have the novel shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, a prize that rewards innovative approaches to fiction."

"Whenever I can’t find stories that I want to read, I try writing them for myself. In this case, I’d met many older women who’d lived colorful lives and yet when it came to fiction, I didn’t find stories that mirrored these lives, especially so when it came to the lives of Black women."

"The 1960s struck me as such an exciting decade in which to start the novel—it was the time of independence movements across Africa, the Civil Rights movement in the US, and various countercultural movements across Europe. Artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Fela Kuti and the Beatles were amongst many to herald this change. But because I hadn’t lived through this decade myself, I had to do a lot of research for In Dependence for it to feel as historically authentic as possible. I loved the research which included reading back issues of local magazines and newspapers and interviewing people who’d lived through the period."

"In the realm of a TV series, I think of Wole Soyinka’s political satire Chronicles From The Land of the Happiest People On Earth and NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, which might also lend itself to an animated film. There are so many exciting prospects within the genre of documentary films too. Take Hugh Masekela’s Still Grazing—how visually and sonically fabulous such a film could be. I’d also love to see my novels adapted for the screen. In Dependence as a feature film, and Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, as a TV series. Film broadens and expands our access to stories and opens many new possibilities for creative work."

"Oh, there are so many! When I think of feature films, I imagine the intense drama of Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero; the quiet grief, as well as the eroticism of Yewande Omotoso’s An Unusual Grief; the forbidden wartime love story of Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees. Short stories such as Segun Afolabi’s ‘Monday Morning’ would also make for powerful and timely feature length films."

"I tend to disagree with most end-of-year ‘best of’ arts lists, not so much for what’s on the lists but for what gets overlooked. In the realm of recent films for example, I would have loved more attention to Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, especially his sonic and visual gem, Lovers Rock and the same for Jeymes Samuel’s directorial debut, The Harder They Fall, a casting tour-de-force. On the writing front, Yewande Omotoso’s novel, An Unusual Grief—a book about friendship, sex, grieving, domesticity, and depression is one that deserves more attention."

"Thanks to my mum, I read many Puffin classics. I loved the miniature Beatrix Potter books, Richard Adam’s Watership Down, and tales of Brer Rabbit. As a child, I was a voracious reader, of books and of people, and still am an inveterate eavesdropper and people-watcher. Snippets of overheard conversations and the faces of people not usually noticed often inspire the stories I write. Wondering about other people’s life stories is what I do."

"Is every, every?’ ‘Everything’s fine,’ I say, sensing her struggle with the words."

"" The future of Nigeria is no longer in it's army as some of us used to think, but in the oil business."

"Negritude is an ideology of the elite, completely devoid of meaning for the masses ... Negritude is an ideology suggesting that Africans are blessed with a soul and not reason. They would have us believe that Africans can sing, dance and feel, but not think."

"A book reads us as much as we read a book."

"How could I explain that the way he craved my body made me angry"

"It’s tough out here, and sometimes when I read about Africa, I don’t see America being any better. It’s really a crying shame."

"I keep remembering the man who repeatedly lifted an empty fork from his plate to his toothless mouth."

"The architects must only have thought of women when they designed retirement homes, and assumed they liked to sit and stare solemnly at gardens all day."

"Madness. Old age is a massacre. No place for sissies. No place for love songs. No place for dreaming. No place for dreaming erotic dreams"

"I dream of being held. Of being touched. Of being desired again. Of being recognized. Of not having to worry about what other people might one day think of this, might already be thinking."

"What is done is done and I’ll wait until I get home to see how bad things really are. Consider the birds in the sky, I remind myself. Consider the birds in the sky."

"I may be old, but farting and burping in public is not something I intend to succumb to. If I can help it."

"How often I have felt lonely even when with someone. Lonelier sometimes than when I’m on my own."

"Now the books are arranged according to which characters I believe ought to be talking to each other."

"always remember that you are an Ajayi man. Don’t forget the Ajayi motto – In all things moderation, with exception of study."

"Keeping up with attempting to attending as many events as you are invited but age personality interest are some factors that determine if one attends though. NETWORKING is so key in this field."

"The identity integrity and gift to dream again people saw and learn from my life especially as a person living with disability NOW."

"My purpose, late Myles Munroe always said "die empty. Eternity has been on my mind, what a shame if I didn't do as much as I have been tasked with, let alone not starting on that journey."

"I research a lot depending on the subject-matter. The subject matter informs the nature of settings to be used in the story; historic, physical, socio-economic and political environments, also referred to as Time and Place/Space. For example if the setting is to be a hospital scene, my research will be to observe how the entire hospital management functions, and how medical and other technical staff operates."

"It’s time we moved the shame from victim to perpetrator. They’re the ones that should be ashamed."

"Freedom is exercising your rights, getting an education without the fear of sexual harassment."

"Once we begin to see women as humans with as much right to occupy spaces as men. We would have removed the foundation upon which gender-based violence thrives."

"There is real danger in losing call of God"

"Go to your pastor first to consult for marriage before your parents"

"Don’t marry a girl who is lazy! Don’t marry a girl who cannot cook, she needs to know how to do chores and cook because you cannot afford to be eating out all the time"

"Brethren, this is the time anybody will need grace more than ever before. ‎"

"Recommending any one of my books would depend on the target audience. For young adults, ‘The Stillborn’, for the teens, ‘The Virtuous Woman’, for a variety of readers, ‘From The Housewife’, to the university undergraduate to the footloose, ‘Cobwebs and Other Stories’, for those interested in family values, ‘The Descendants’ and for the symbolist, ‘The Initiates’."

"By the Grace of Almighty God, I want to believe that I have been able to touch the lives of people, not only through writing, but in other simple ways, and I intend to do that for as long as I live."

"A little bit of me is in every book I have written. Consciously, or unconsciously, an artist gives away a piece of the ‘self’. It is widely believed that a good piece of creative work is an extension of the artist."

"Simple question, but difficult answer. At the age of eight, I literally held a hoe in my hands. Two plots of land were carved out for me from my mother’s land, one for okra, the other for groundnuts. I helped my mother pay my school fees. Many people would find this hard to believe. I am still holding a hoe, (in a sense). Hard work runs through my blood. It does not kill, but laziness does. If I were to write about myself I would have hundreds of titles, maybe a title for every page."

"I teach, interact with students on daily basis, and supervise their theses. I create time for family members. I do not set a daily writing goal. It does not work for me that way. I realized also that I needed to be sober to write convincingly. I cannot write when I am excessively happy. Some days are simply blank. Often I would write when travelling, or at night when sleep escapes."

"I believe in the English saying that ‘No one ever kicks a dead dog’. I must be doing something worth talking about. Criticism, negative, or positive serves as a platform for my intellectual growth. In time, the ‘Mazauni gonin rawa’ will come to realize that strength and weakness have nothing to do with gender, they are personality traits. Society simply assigned weakness for women, perhaps based on physic."

"Writing in Nigeria is not a job at all, because a job pays. Writing at home does not. I certainly cannot remember the last time I heard from my publishers. Between the publishers and the book pirates a creative writer in Nigeria will have to have a better reason for writing. For me, writing is therapeutic. I find emotional and psychological healings in it. The act of writing has always been my life-line."

"Unknown to many, there are some good female writers in Northern Nigeria, but they are not easily known because they write in Hausa language. For a wider audience, I have advocated for translations, for years, at various forums, at home and abroad."

"The time-factor. I often wish there are more hours in a day. When a writer is holding, rather tightly, to a demanding job, such as teaching, raising a family and fulfilling certain social obligations, writing can easily take a backbench."

"My major genre is the prose fiction, followed by short stories, and the central theme has always been about female empowerment. I am intrigued by mysteries, Sci-fi and detective books. As for children’s books, as I get older, I now realize the importance of writing for children."

"For me, there’s no special atmosphere for writing. Whenever I feel the urge, (known in literature as ‘inspiration’) I write, using my small note book to capture scenes from the outside and passing ideas from my mind."