‘I Don’t Remember Typos’

Editor-in-Chief of zikoko.com, Fu’ad Lawal, dreams of a West Africa-As-A-Country story. A non-perfectionist, when he first started writing, ‘I found that I was drawn to the snowflake method. It’s where you take an idea, and build on it, layer by layer. It’s about continuously registering your discontent, until the story becomes bearable.’

Written by Fu'ad Lawal

Apr 29, 2020

Fu’ad Lawal OJIMA ABALAKA

Our questions are italicized.

What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?

I remember the first novel I owned: The Betrayer, from the Pacesetters series. Maybe it was all the tears I had to shed in hiding so my brother couldn’t laugh at me, but I think that thing slapped my brain into loving stories. I was seven then. My relationship with books at the time can be summed up in the used books my mum brought home from her office, or whatever Pacesetters novel my dad found at bookstands on his way out of the market. Throw in a couple of Enid Blyton’s; those anthologies and Malory Towers— my mum grew up on these, passing them down must have meant a lot to her.

Boarding school was, perhaps, the first time I sought out my own literature, and it was Islamic literature. I was a teenager coming to terms with his own identity. Again, I quickly realized that I was less interested in fiqh (jurisprudence) and more in history wherever I could find it. And so, while I can say I’ve read all kinds of things since then, I know for sure that history is the most consistent thing in most literature I’m drawn to.

What’s the last history-related thing you learnt from a book?

Feels completely random, but one of the books I’m currently reading, How to Stage A Military Coup, describes all coups as having the same mechanism: the small and nimble going up against the big and sluggish. This description slaps different when you work at a startup.

What’s the last book/article you disagreed with, and why?

Godwin Alabi-Isama’s The Tragedy of Victory. It’s a book about what the Nigerian-Biafra War looked like around the Atlantic coast. While much of history (or historical accounts) is perception, I don’t like the author’s tone very much—his military arrogance gets in the way sometimes. But I wasn’t at the Atlantic’s theatre of war, so I’m going to keep reading.

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About the Author

Fu'ad Lawal

is Editor-in-Chief of Zikoko and Head of Content at Big Cabal Media.

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‘I Don’t Remember Typos’

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