‘No One Sees the World the Way You Do.’

Writer, journalist and author of ‘Soundbender: The Many Lives of Beautiful Nubia’, Kemi Falodun, believes good writing requires practice. ‘One must make an effort to improve. Although there are factors—social, financial, environmental—that may facilitate or impede one’s capacity to develop the skill.’

By Kemi Falodun

November 13, 2020

Kemi Falodun. OJIMA ABALAKA

Our questions are italicized.

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

I didn’t read much as a child. Of course, we were required to read story books in school—Sugar Girl, Koku Baboni both by Kola Onadipe. There was one I loved about a blind woman who could predict the rain. But I also remember that Eddie Iroh’s Without a Silver Spoon, Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Bottled Leopard and a few other books lay around the house and I never read them. Got bored as soon as I opened them. Sometimes, though, my cousin came around and told me some àlọ́. I’d lay there on the bed, listening to the tales, thinking about all those lives, all those animals and hunters and kings in a faraway world. I like to think those moments had the most significant influence on me as a writer. It was years later, in boarding school, that I started to enjoy reading. Harlequin and Silhouette books, Frank Peretti, Ted DeKker, Sidney Sheldon, Anton Chekhov, my list was endless.

What three books would you go back to boarding school to discover again?

Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon, Fine Things by Danielle Steel, and Thr3e by Ted Dekker. It was in Thr3e I first learnt about Dissociative Identity Disorder. Dekker masterfully drew a parallel between this mental disorder and one of our fundamental existential preoccupations. There’s the self in the middle, and there’s the self’s struggle with good on one side and evil on the other side. The three entities are embodied by different characters, where the ‘self’ is the protagonist. After a series of mysteries and turns, as the story draws towards the end, the writer reveals that those three characters are in fact the same person. I was extremely impressed. The film adaptation was bad though.

And what book from your childhood would you pass on to someone younger?

Definitely Olagoke Ojo’s Ìjàpá Tìrókò Ọkọ Yánníbo. That is actually the only book I remember reading of my own accord as a child. Ìjàpá Tìrókò Ọkọ Yánníbo is a collection of folktales about the tortoise. Quite enjoyable. Didactic too, with lessons on hard work, integrity, loyalty—vital values one should possess as they navigate life.

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About the Author

Kemi Falodun

is a writer based in Lagos. Her writing has been featured in Electric Literature, Saraba Magazine, The Rumpus, and Africa is a Country.

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‘No One Sees the World the Way You Do.’