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Writer and author of ‘Iyibo My First’, Edwin Okolo, wishes more people realized the novelty of adolescence: ‘I wish more people understood that boarding schools merely compound a cardinal problem: adolescence is a relatively young concept. As early as 150 years ago, you were a child, and then became an adult.’
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 were on your secondary school reading list/curriculum?
I went to a unity college with an impressive library thanks to a British Council grant. Classes were boring so I hung out at the library a lot and entertained myself with the beautiful illustrations of exotic animals in the library’s American biology textbooks. I spent the next few years working my way through the library’s fantasy section, devouring the unabridged version of Arabian Nights with the complete 1001 stories, Thomas Harris and his Hannibal Lecter series, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and the collective works of the Brothers Grimm.
We were only allowed a few hours in the library each day and were not allowed to take the books out of the library. So, eventually, I took to ‘borrowing’ the books for the long holidays. I think I still have a few of them at my house somewhere.
What other books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
One of my most reliable sources for diverse and compelling storytelling was Selwyn Hughes, the author of the Everyday With Jesus bi-monthly devotional and the Our Daily Bread annual devotionals. I would sneak off and devour the stories in the devotional usually within the first two days. I’m yet to find a writer as skilled as Selwyn.
I went to a private primary school run by a community of Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian and Estonian wives who married Nigerian diplomats and soldiers to escape the USSR in the 80s. My primary school had an impressive library, full of age-appropriate mystery books. I remember one in particular about a group of child detectives, one of whom had dark hair and wore glasses, who solve a mystery by discovering the criminal’s typewriter had a defective letter. That book also taught me about pangrams, sentences that have all letters of the alphabet. If anyone can tell me the name of the series, I’d be eternally grateful.
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About the Author
is a writer and essayist based in Lagos. He has been featured in Vogue and BBC and has also been profiled on CNN.
Nigerian novelist, poet and author of Graceland, Chris Abani, does not believe ‘Nigerian literature’ exists as a category: ‘It is a common misconception that there is a fixed category that can be read as essentially “Nigerian literature”. Nigeria has 500 nations, 500 languages and about 2,000 dialects. While culture and language can overlap, the level of diversity is such that Nigerian literature cannot be easily narrowed down.’
For the co-founder and publishing director, of Cassava Republic Press, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, it is telling that African literature is often pronounced dead in recent years, when more women and queer voices are becoming more prominent: ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’
Nigerian poet, novelist and author of Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, Ben Okri, argues that Nigerian literature doesn’t always have to be about Nigeria: ‘Nigerian literature limits itself to Nigeria and then limits even the ways in which the country can be written about. What we want is a vast literature, a great literature…that speaks to all humanity.’
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