Growing up in Canada, author of ‘Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys Of Motherhood: A Precursor To Contemporary Nigerian Feminist Texts?’, Mobólúwajídìde D. Joseph used to feel inauthentic as a Nigerian writer: ‘Unlike my parents I didn’t grow up deep in Yorùbá land and I don’t speak the language as well as I could. I’ve consequently always had this apprehension about being read as inauthentic and performative.’
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?
I think that could be answered in two ways: books I wanted to read and books that were foisted upon me by my parents, especially my dad. For the former, I was a massive fan of Enid Blyton’s work, also Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson. And then, as my tastes evolved, everyone from Chinua Achebe to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Flora Nwapa to James Baldwin. For a massive stretch of my formative years actually, Adichie’s Purple Hisbiscus and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird were my two favourite books. I reread both books so many times and fell in love with the bildungsroman as a form. I was also a fantasy and sci-fi fan. Ursula K. Le Guin, C. S. Lewis, Rick Riordan, Eoin Colfer, and even secretly the entire Harry Potter series (they were forbidden to me so I did not read them till much later). I can’t possibly recount every book I read growing up, in part because there was no moment I wasn’t reading a book. It was all I did for years.
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