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Award-winning writer and author of When We Were Fireflies, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, says the writing process for his latest book was both impulsive and compulsive: ‘I say compulsive because it was a story that took hold of me and wouldn’t let me go until I had poured it all out.’
I’ve found that much of what I read either reinforces my existing perceptions or deepens my understanding of situations.
At some point, I had to accept that it was better to have words to delete than not to have it at all because it means you are working and mentally engaged with the work.
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About the Author
is an award-winning Nigerian writer and journalist. His debut novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, won the 2016 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. The novel has also been translated into French, German and Tamil. His debut short story collection, The Whispering Trees (2012), was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize for Literature. His latest novel, When We Were Fireflies, was published in Nigeria in 2023 and is due out in French and German in 2024. It has been shortlisted for the inaugural Hodler Prize and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize.
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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