Academic and founder and editor of Brittle Paper, Ainehi Edoro-Glines, has often heard that the African novel is simply the European novel with African themes: ‘I think that’s BS. African novels are something entirely different. Read Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka or Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater, and there is NOTHING in the European canon that can explain the innovations taking place in those texts.’
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?
Kola Onadipe’s Sugar Girl was the first book I read that felt like a novel. I was seven. I also read Eze Goes To School, The Drummer Boy, and Without a Silver Spoon. I remember reading An African Night’s Entertainment and feeling bad for being on the side of the villain, who I felt was dealt a pretty bad deal. I found Cheer Up Brother ridiculously funny, especially all the scatological references. Dizzy Angel, a YA about an Ogbanje girl is probably where I fell in love with mytho-fantastical elements in storytelling. There were the Victorian classics, of course, which my siblings thought I HAD to read and HAD to enjoy. But I hated them. Treasure Island was so unrelatable and The Moonstone was boring, but I read them because it was somehow an anathema to be 10 years old and not to have read these classics. I also don’t want to discount the place of the Bible in my working-class Nigerian upbringing. The Bible was a kind of urtext that shaped many aspects of our lives. We had various editions and translations of the Bible in the home. And I enjoyed leafing through in search of stories at a young age...
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