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Author of A Particular Kind of Black Man, Tope Folarin, believes creative writing is more than just having an active imagination: ‘One must learn and become fluent in the craft of writing before giving one’s imagination free rein.’
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?
Reading was profoundly important to me as a child because, to be frank, I didn’t really have anything else. My father did not allow my siblings and me to watch much television, and the radio was off limits. Also, on the weekends my father would often drop us off at the library before going to work, and he’d pick us up after he was done. So I spent a great deal of time around books. The books that had the greatest impact on me as a child were The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the Earthsea Cycle series by Ursula K. Leguin, The Wrinkle In Time Quintet by Madeline L’Engle, and the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card. These books transformed my relationship with the written word, altered the way I thought about the world and my place in it, and—looking back—inspired me to embark on my own journey as a writer.
What about those books inspired you to become a writer?
As a child I was struck by how immersive these books were. They felt real to me; they were not mere stories. I always marveled at the fact that the authors of these books possessed the skill and power to whisk me away to some other dimension, and the more I read the more I desired the ability to do this for others as well.
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About the Author
is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington DC. He has garnered many awards for his writing, including the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Whiting Award for Fiction. His debut novel, A Particular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon & Schuster.
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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