Author of Tomorrow I Become A Woman, Aiwanose Odafen, left an accounting background to fully pursue writing: ‘I’ve often chosen the uncommon option, paths that my family has largely disagreed with. I have a first class degree in Accounting, I’m a chartered accountant and hold an MBA from Oxford, but I decided to become a writer, no one understands it, I’m not sure I fully do either.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
Growing up, we didn’t travel a lot and so books were my pathway to knowledge of the far and beyond. I was a very curious child and I wanted to know what was out there, and my parents fed my curiosity.
My father and I used to have ‘bookshopping’ days when we’d go to bookshops and pick out all sorts of books, particularly fiction, for me to read. He also got me a lot of books on random topics like political biographies and the history of banking and the Medici family. To be honest I read a lot of books I had no business reading at that age. I also read a lot of Jane Austen, Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Elliot. For Nigerian authors, I read a very good number of the classics — Onuora Nzekwu and Michael Crowder’s Eze Goes to School, Eddie Iroh’s Without A Silver Spoon, Kola Onadpie’s Sugar Girl etc.—but I particularly enjoyed works by Chinua Achebe (Arrow of God), Buchi Emecheta (The Joys of Motherhood remains an obsession of mine), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus), Ola Rotimi (Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again) and Anezi Okoro: humour has always been important to me in writing and I absolutely appreciated the hilarity of One Week One Trouble. Hopefully, one day, I’ll write a book as lighthearted from beginning to end.
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