Short Story Writers From Nigeria

"Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories."

"If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom."

"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."

"When I woke up I found myself in a coffin. My parents had given me up for dead. They had commenced the burial proceedings when they heard my fierce weeping. Because of my miraculous recovery they named me a second time and threw a party which they couldn’t afford.They named me Lazaro. But as I became the subject of much jest, and as many were uneasy with the connection between Lazaro and Lazarus, Mum shortened my name to Azaro."

"If you prefer sitting in traffic to sitting at your desk, if you pass office hours waiting for closing time, if you spend more time on Facebook than you do attending to important emails then perhaps it's time for you to consider quitting your job."

"Be courageous, not brave. Bravery was to dash out of the bomb shelter and grab the child left crying on the veranda. Courage was to go to the stream the day after a bomb had scattered your friend on that path because water must be fetched to sustain the life that was left"

"Not even crocodiles eat their young...papa takes care of his children."

"when I wrote My Father’s Daughter, some people said it was too good to be true; but it couldn’t be too good to be true, because if you set your mind in good things, you will do good things."

"I still pay tribute to my English teacher, Mrs. Ore Cole, who taught me how to become a writer. It makes you wiser and more intelligent. When you read a lot you eventually want to become a writer."

"I think there is no one of us who can boast of having telescopic eyes. But when you read, books become your telescopic eyes. You will see the whole world through the books you have been reading. And you become wiser. If you don’t read any book at all, you will rarely develop."

"Some people who didn’t have better fathers said it was fiction. I said, ‘Well. if you didn’t have the kind of father that I had then there is no point in trying to belittle my own father. My father was a great man'."

"When you write children’s literature, you write for different ages."

"I like to revise my works to be as near perfect as possible."

"Find Someone To Grow Old With, And You’ll Never Grow Old. Find A Cause To Live For, And You’ll Never Die"

"The beauty of poetry shouldn’t be in how well the poet hides meaning between the lines. It should be in how easily he makes his readers discover them. A poem does not have to be difficult to be profound; ‘simple’ and ‘profound’ are not mutually exclusive."

"“Your Father Walks Like a Crab”"

"In these tumultuous times, I keep returning to James Baldwin’s essays and in particular to his Notes of a Native Son. He reminds me of the importance of holding on to two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time: staying committed to the struggles against injustices while keeping one’s heart free of hatred and despair."

"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."

"My father describes Okigbo as a fast-speaking, fast-driving, fun-loving, and extremely intelligent young man. He apparently had a flair for languages, routinely reciting passages of Ovid in Latin, and tutoring one student in Greek who subsequently got an A in the Greek exam. My dad also describes how Okigbo, along with the school headmaster, Alex Ajayi, would have various “bashes” over the weekend. They were, as my father later reflected, a high-powered Bloomsbury Group of young intellectuals and scholars. These are stories I wish we had more of, and they’re part of the impetus behind Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora."

"That’s a really interesting observation. You’re right that there are similarities between the two protagonists. Tayo and Obi are roughly of the same generation, they both win scholarships to study abroad, and they return to Nigeria full of idealism before finding themselves buffeted by some of the same issues and challenges of the day. What’s also interesting is that it’s Vanessa who urges Tayo to read Achebe’s novels. When Tayo does read No Longer at Ease, he’s struck by how tragic the story is but doesn’t, at least not in his letter to Vanessa, go as far as reflecting on how Obi’s story might be relevant to his own life."

"The warmth that I feel toward Okigbo actually comes from hearing my father speak about him. In the late 1950s, my father was one of his students at Fiditi Grammar School, Ibadan, where Okigbo taught Latin and English literature and was also the sports coach. I suspect that my dad, the football team’s goalkeeper, might have been one of Okigbo’s favorite students. He recounts the story of how Okigbo came to him one afternoon and asked if he’d ever traveled in a car that went as fast as one hundred miles an hour. “Hop in,” said Okigbo to my father, and then proceeded to dazzle him with a speedy drive to the University of Ibadan in his red sports car."

"I’m so grateful to Adichie for having written Half of a Yellow Sun with its focus on the Nigerian civil war. Her novel, alongside other books with the war at its core, including Soyinka’s memoir The Man Died, Chris Abani’s novella-in-verse Daphne’s Lot, and Chinelo Okparanta’s novel Under the Udala Trees, all give us a greater sense of the events and conditions of that horrific war. While the civil war is not the central focus of In Dependence, it forms part of the tragic backdrop to the story. In Dependence is deeply personal for me in that I am writing about my parents’ generation. This is not my parents’ story, but it could have been their story."

"Henry Louis Gates Jr’s op-ed piece in the New York times, Who’s Afraid of Black History? didn’t change my mind on the topic but it brought much needed perspective and insight to the current curriculum debates in the US."

"I’d met many older women who had lived colorful lives, and yet when it came to fiction I couldn’t find many stories that mirrored this, especially so when it came to the lives of Black women. Similarly, I couldn’t find many books that explored an older woman’s sexuality. I had many literary examples of older men’s desire, but far less when it came to older women, and so I decided to go there, albeit in a small way."

"You mention Abubakar’s wonderful novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, and I can tell you that when it came out I joked with him that his fifty-five-year-old Bintu could hardly be considered an old woman, at least not in comparison to my Morayo, two decades older. However, I hadn’t yet met Willard Harris, a real-life character and now a dear friend whom I write about in my new book. Mrs. Harris was ninety-seven years old when I first met her, and at that time she had a “gentleman friend” who was at least a decade younger than her. You know what they say about life being stranger or more interesting than fiction."

"In many ways, the story I chose to write is not what readers might associate with the archetypal immigrant or exile story. It’s not a story of someone who has arrived in a country without all the necessary documentation, or of someone living on the edges of society, just barely scraping by. I chose to write about a character who lives a life of the mind and is materially well off. Yet, as you highlight, she too faces hardships and loneliness in her old age."

"But in brief, as a child of a multiracial marriage who has lived in various countries with different histories of race and racism, and as a scholar and novelist for whom race and identity feature fairly prominently in my work, it’s safe to say that these issues are weighty, albeit not to the point of holding me back. Here again is where I take my cue from Baldwin, who advocates remaining committed to the struggle against injustices while keeping one’s heart free of hatred and despair."

"My first thought is that there are, of course, harsher forms of exile. Morayo does at least have a comfortable place to live, food to eat, and access to health care. I also suspect that Morayo, with thoughts of the ethnic and religious strife that had taken place in her home city of Jos, might be quick to say that the internally displaced face the cruelest form of exile."

"Humans are fond of putting people into categories for all sorts of reasons, but oftentimes, especially when it comes to skin color and nationality, for creating hierarchies or pecking orders. As for my experiences of race and identity, that’s a very big question deserving of an essay-length response, hence my introductory chapter."

"Thank you, Darlington, and what a touching story! I’d love to meet your neighbor’s daughter. In terms of what inspired the novel, it was simply as Morrison once put it: If there’s a story you’re dying to read and you can’t find it, then write it. I was looking for a great interracial love story set in geographical locations and historical periods that I was particularly interested in—namely West Africa from the 1960s to present day—and because I couldn’t find that story, I attempted to write it."

"Oh, so many things, especially the joyful moments that we shared. I remember, for example, the laughter between old friends Wole Soyinka and Henry Louis Gates Jr. as Soyinka reminisced about Morrison teaching him the phrase “knock your socks off” but then failing to deliver on the promise of knocking his socks off with the choice of a restaurant that Soyinka found lacking—not enough pepper! Or the moment when I asked Morrison if we could talk about sex, to which she responded with a wry smile, “Yeah! I’m in a good position to talk about it, since it’s been like a thousand years. What do you want to know?” Or the day, when walking with 102-year-old Willard Harris, that she insisted I seize the opportunity to travel to the South Pole, repeatedly saying, “You go, girl!” And so it was that the stories and the laughter flowed. I also love the adage that several of them cite, from Michelle Obama to Lord Michael Hastings, Margaret Busby, and Senator Cory Booker—plant trees under whose shade other generations will sit. Each of those featured embodies this evocation."

"There are some in this book, like Michelle Obama, for example, who used the platforms they were given to effect change while others, such as Evan Mawarire, created a movement from the bottom up to speak truth to power. The twelve featured are a tiny subset of many others doing extraordinary things. My hope is that Between Starshine and Clay will inspire more writers to capture such stories and histories."

"How I wish that Baldwin was still with us—he was so wise, and his work feels just as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. Baldwin’s presence is felt throughout this book in part because he meant so much to many of those featured, including Morrison. In Morrison’s eulogy for Baldwin, she refers to three gifts that he gave to her: tenderness, courage, and language. These are gifts that I feel he’s given to all of us, and of course Morrison has left us with similar gifts, too. A copy of Baldwin’s Collected Essays has sat close to my writing desk for more than two decades. It sits alongside Margaret Busby’s groundbreaking anthologies, Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa—my literary taliswomen."

"I never thought about the confluence of the two books in the way you’ve described it. I love it! This is part of the beauty of writing, being surprised by what others see. Yes, Tayo and Morayo would certainly have a lot to talk about–their relationship might even go further than a platonic one. Who knows! There are certainly thematic similarities between the books, especially around the notion of independence and interdependence. I also see a chronological continuation between both novels. I left Tayo and Vanessa at the end of In Dependence in their sixties and with Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun I moved to a character in her seventies. It would follow, therefore that my next book might feature a character in her eighties and perhaps some younger characters too. Which, coincidentally, at least thus far…is the way book three is looking."

"Going to Hedgebrook was a transformative experience for me. I was already a published author before I went, but the experience of going to Hedgebrook and meeting other writers made me believe in myself as a writer and trust in my own voice more than I’d ever dared to before. I’ve always tried to support fellow writers and Hedgebrook has given me an even wider platform from which to do so."

"Thank you, Darlington. My hope is that this book will lead, in some small way, to a deeper and richer understanding of Africa and the African diaspora—of the many things we hold in common as well as our differences. Similarities range from experiences of racism and discrimination to police brutality, and to the fragility of democracies whether we’re talking about Nigeria, Zimbabwe, or America. Differences include personal histories, identities, backgrounds, and geographies."

"I have written about Baldwin in Between Starshine and Clay and elsewhere. Baldwin means a lot to me for the following reasons: he inspires me as a writer; he inspires me for his wisdom—his insights and clarity around many issues; and I identify with the various places and peoples of the African diaspora that he writes about from France to America. My introductory essay is a reverent nod to Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son with its personal exploration of race, histories, and countries lived in."

"Had I known that my first novel would become required reading for all students applying to university in Nigeria, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to write it. It has been an incredible honor for me to have a book read by so many people and especially exciting to know that the novel is, in some small way, inspiring a new generation of writers."

"At the time that I began to write the novel I was simply looking for a really good love story set in my parent’s generation with at least one character from West Africa, and because I couldn’t find such a story, I tried writing it myself. As Toni Morrison says, if there’s a book you want to read but can’t find, then try writing it."

"I don’t find juggling easy. However, for the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to attend a few writing retreats (such as Hedgebrook) and that always gives my writing a boost. Currently, I’m not teaching, which makes it easier to prioritize my writing. The way that you’ve described your struggle to maintain balance certainly resonates for me."

"Thanks to my character, I too have begun to group my books in non-traditional ways. Thus far, my groupings, unlike Morayo’s, have been less about characters talking to each other and more about pairing authors. For example, I have Marilynne Robinson and Toni Morrison’s Home’s next to each other as well as God Help the Child next to Lila as there are thematic similarities in both pairings."

"The name, Morayo, means “I see joy” in Yoruba, so this already signals to some readers that joy has encircled her from birth. At the same time, Morayo works hard to stay optimistic through the challenges that life brings. She is someone who is interested in narrative and in the same way that she enjoys changing the endings of some of her favorite books, she also tries to embrace narratives that help move her forward rather than getting her stuck or depressed. I suppose I’ve written a character to inspire me."

"And recently, because London has been on my mind, I’ve found myself placing Zadie Smith’s NW next to Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye and Ben Judah’s This is London. I, like Morayo, am interested in books expanding and enriching the literary landscape. As for my two novels, they currently still sit alphabetically on my shelves, happily wedged in between Jhumpa Lahiri, Amara Lakhous, Javier Marias, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez."

"In the early stages of any project I need longer periods of unstructured time to delve deeply into the writing and to stick to the project. It’s easier for me to balance several things at once if I’m in the editing and polishing phases of writing. I’m almost always craving more time and solitude to write, but at the same time I know that being engaged in the world is what fuels my writing."

"I think that every relationship has its complications, and in the case of Tayo and Vanessa, they had to contend with the added family and societal pressures of being an interracial couple at a time of pervasive colonial attitudes. In the 1960s, there was a great deal of societal resistance to interracial relationships, attitudes that arguably still persist to this day whether in the UK, America, or elsewhere. If I’d written a novel without complications, I also suspect that your neighbor’s daughter would have exercised her spirit of independence and found a different book to immerse herself in."

"When was the last time you failed or faced rejection as a writer and how did you cope with it and what did you learn from the experience?"

"I have a number of books in other languages—aspirational books for when my language skills improve enough to be able to read them. I’m particularly keen to read more books by African authors that are not yet translated into English. The two that currently sit on my desk are translations from other European languages: La sombra de la Mulemba—Cuentos Africanos Lusófonos and Matemáticas Congolesas by Koli Jean Bofane. I would love to add to my bookshelves, many more books published in African languages."

"I’m thinking a lot about the fraught state of our world including the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza. I’ve just started reading The Ukraine by writer Artem Chapeye, who is currently fighting for his country, as well as The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. I’m also re-reading David Grossman’s To the End of the Land."

"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."