Editor and author of Caine Prize shortlisted story ‘Daughters, By Our Hands’ Ekemini Pius, believes rather than the subject, how a story is written makes a text powerful: ‘What you want to write is not as important as the way it is written. I’ve seen many promising subjects and plots fail because the writers did not have the prosal wherewithal to execute them.’
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, I read my parents’ novels which includes books by Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Eddie Iroh, Camara Laye, and Elechi Amadi. I also read anything I could find around the house: Where There is no Doctor by David Werner, the Awake pamphlet faithfully delivered to our house every month by eager Jehovah’s Witnesses, and my mother’s business textbooks.
If your life so far was a series of texts, which text (fiction or nonfiction) represents you at this moment?
That would be the essay collection, Of This Our Country: Acclaimed Nigerian Writers on the Home, Identity and Culture They Know.
What’s the last thing you read and disagreed with?
I read mostly novels and short stories and I don’t disagree with stories because they are a valid means of artistic expression...
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