Nigerian novelist and author of Dele Weds Destiny, Tomi Obaro, says her debut novel was loosely inspired by her mother’s relationship with her best friends: ‘They haven’t lived in the same country for over thirty years but have remained close. My mother, sister, and I visited one of those friends in Europe and we were looking through old photographs and I remember thinking, there’s a story here!’
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 whatever books I had access to, which tended to be works by dead white authors—such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the Anne of Green Gables series, numerous works by Charles Dickens, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. I was a very obnoxious adolescent with tons of literary pretensions, so I usually only wanted to read what was considered part of the Western canon. As I got older, thankfully my tastes began to broaden, and I began to read and appreciate writers like Nella Larsen, Arundhati Roy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Chinua Achebe. But obviously this is a very truncated list!
What is your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
I think for first drafts it’s ideal if you write first and then edit, which is easier said than done for me. I’ve found that editing so early on is often just a form of procrastination, a way of futzing with the text endlessly so I don’t have to do the hard work of figuring out what comes next.
What was your process for writing your debut novel, Dele Weds Destiny?
I started writing it in August 2019 and finished in the spring of 2020. I wrote whenever I could—in the mornings before work, on the train, waiting in line. When the pandemic hit, I was so overwhelmed by the news, that when I wasn’t working, I would write, and it was that final burst of energy that allowed me to finish the draft...