More than the end-result and feedback, journalist, Emmanuel Akinwotu, finds the process to be the most exciting part of writing: ‘Talking to people who are gracious enough to share experiences or expertise with me, a stranger writing for a publication they may or may not know, read or care for, is a kindness I try not to take for granted.’
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?
Thankfully I genuinely loved reading as a child, because if I hadn’t, my parents would have heavily enforced it. My mum was an English teacher in Nigeria before she moved to London to join my dad in 1988. Like many Nigerian and African immigrants in the UK, they put intense pressure on our learning and excelling in education.
I loved the books we read in primary school reading groups, by Roald Dahl, Anne Fine, Ladybird classics. and fantasy. Then independently, I remember being seven and finding Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman in the class library. The cover is this radiant image of a young black girl, smiling with gaps in her teeth, with a look of anticipation. It’s such a simple and striking picture.
Later on, when I was around 11, I was hooked on Malorie Blackman’s novels, from Pig-Heart Boy, then Thief, then Noughts and Crosses series, then every book she’d written that was available at The Clocktower, my local library in Croydon, South London. Reading novels that centred black characters in stories that were not ‘black stories’ felt striking to me.
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