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Founder of Masobe Books and author of Aviara, Othuke Ominiabohs, believes that writers should write whatever truly interests them. However, ‘it would be exciting to see more romantic stories, thrillers, and daring, genre-bending works from Nigerian writers.
Founder of Masobe Books and author of Aviara, Othuke Ominiabohs, believes that writers should write whatever truly interests them. However, ‘it would be exciting to see more romantic stories, thrillers, and daring, genre-bending works from Nigerian writers.’
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?
The books I read growing up changed at every stage of my development. However, my earliest memories of books were some hard cover children’s books with colourful pictures featuring characters like Jane, Jack and Jill and Peter and Paul as the characters. They were a sort of series. I think they were called Lady Bird book series. Then as I grew older, I delved into my sisters’ collection of romance novels which included Mills and Boon novels, Silhouette book series and a few others. In my early teenage years, I fell in love with adventure and magical realism in books like Arabian Nights where I encountered Aladdin, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, The Thief of Baghdad and other magical stories. Then came my brief stint with African Literature: The African Writers series, The Drummer Boy, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, The New Man, The Boy Slave, The Return of The Boy Slave, When a Child is Motherless, An African Child, The Bottled Leopard, the list is quite long. But I think the writer I would later become started to take form when I discovered James Hadley Chase. I loved the thrill and the suspense and how all of it was wrapped in magnificent prose. From there on it was thrillers of all kinds: Jeffery Archer, Sydney Sheldon, John Grisham, Frederick Forsythe, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ian Flemming, Lee Child. I had a particular fondness for Robert Ludlum, and I would go on to study his works so I could someday become as good a writer as he was.
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About the Author
is a writer, poet and an entrepreneur. He is a graduate of Computer Science from the University of Benin, with three novels to his name: Odufa, A Conspiracy of Ravens and Aviara. He is the founder and CEO of Masobe Books, a leading publishing company in Nigeria.
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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