Author of ‘National Belonging and Social Integration’, Nafeesah Allen, believes writing should be something you enjoy: ‘I used to really blame myself for not having a more structured process. …I have never enjoyed writing that way. I have never wanted to think of writing as anything other than enjoyment.
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?
As a kid, I read all types of books. I went to a predominantly Black public school in Newark, New Jersey. Education was important and reading was the cornerstone of that. I grew up during a time when many people had thought they figured out Afro-centrism.
I’m a granddaughter of the Great Migration and a Nation of Islam baby, so there were always a lot of books around about Black identity and the value of African cultures. I read a lot of books by Black authors whether or not they were writing about Blackness. I also read lots of Babysitters Club books and I tried Goosebumps but was just too scared to finish.
A book that had a big impact on me was Ryan White: My Own Story, a book about a young boy who got HIV through a blood transfusion very early on in the 1980s, well before people really understood the disease or how it was transmitted. That book was very inspiring for me in my youth, as I learned that individual stories aren’t always in line with the major narratives around those issues or people. That was my favourite book for many years, despite it being a really sad story.
If you could rewrite a classic book/text, which would it be and why?
The book that has always come back to me as foundational for my thoughts around activism and integrity rooted in pan-Africanist beliefs and global blackness is Amilcar Cabral’s Return to the Source. So, I wouldn’t exactly rewrite it, but I would expand upon it and put it into a context of Portuguese colonialism and negritude.
Return to the Source is a book that really should be read with a historical companion because it is even more profound when you realize what was happening in Cabral’s world at the time of writing it.
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