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Interviews

Lola Akinmade Åkerström

‘Black Womanhood Is Not a Monolithic Experience’ Lola Akinmade Åkerström’s First Draft

Travel writer and author of the upcoming novel Bitter Honey, Lola Akinmade Åkerström, wants to spark more conversations about the challenges of raising biracial children in white-majority countries: ‘Raising biracial children in a society that remains the last bastion of whiteness and making sure they are deeply self-confident and have a strong sense of identity is my utmost role as a mother in Sweden.’
April/May 2025First DraftInterviewsNigeria
Fatima Bala

‘I Wanted to Explore the Thrill That Comes with First Loves’ Fatima Bala’s First Draft

Nigerian writer and author of Broken, Fatima Bala, says that with her new novel, Hafsatu Bebi, she wanted to explore the realities of being a northern Nigerian girl: ‘I have always wanted to see different authentic depictions of northern Nigerian girls. And so, in the characterization, I was itching to write a northern Muslim who happens to be very different from Fa’iza from Broken.’
April/May 2025First DraftInterviewsNigeria
Fayssal Bensalah

‘Do Not Romanticize Creative Writing’ Fayssal Bensalah’s First Draft

Algerian writer, Fayssal Bensalah, argues that the North African novel in English has not been canonized into African literature by virtue of tradition: ‘This new literary tide has been obscured both continentally and globally. Its pioneers have been kept out of African literature for a long time, and I wanted to change this by writing an essay that introduces this movement and its writers and books.’
AlgeriaApril/May 2025First DraftInterviews
Musih Tedji Xaviere

‘Love, in All Its Forms, Is Resilience’ Musih Tedji Xaviere’s First Draft

Cameroonian novelist, Musih Tedji Xaviere, says her debut novel, These Letters End in Tears, was inspired by the resilience of queer love: ‘The treatment of queer people in Cameroon is appalling, but what I find inspiring is that people still find love even in the hardest circumstances. They refuse to be stripped of their ability to love, no matter the challenges.’
CameroonFebruary/March 2025First DraftInterviews
Karen Chalamilla

‘We Pacify Atrocities With Inaccurate Language’ Karen Chalamilla’s First Draft

Tanzanian researcher and author of ‘The Political Dilemmas of Tanzania’s Music Artists’, Karen Chalamilla, believes we have a duty to name acts of violence when we witness them: ‘Recently, I have become hypervigilant of the way we pacify atrocities with inaccurate language. The most common—and unfortunately relevant—examples being the use of “conflict” in place of “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “pillaging”, or “murder”.’
February/March 2025First DraftInterviewsTanzania