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Anglo-Nigerian writer and author of Wahala, Nikki May, drew inspiration for her latest novel, This Motherless Land, from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park: ‘The idea of a young girl being torn from everything familiar and thrust into an alien environment where she must constantly prove herself is genius.
Anglo-Nigerian writer and author of Wahala, Nikki May, drew inspiration for her latest novel, This Motherless Land, from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park: ‘The idea of a young girl being torn from everything familiar and thrust into an alien environment where she must constantly prove herself is genius. So, I stole it. But my book is a reimagining not a retelling.’
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?
I grew up in Lagos in the 1970s, and back then, there were not many bookshops, so I read anything I could get my hands on, often things that weren’t age-appropriate. As a child, I loved Enid Blyton and Hans Christian Andersen, and scared myself with Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I moved on to Agatha Christie in my teens (I revisit her books often; she has taught me a lot about character and plot) and devoured books by Alistair Maclean and James Hardley Chase. I spent my Queens College days reading Mills & Boons (hundreds of them!). My mother did not approve and pushed more literary tomes into my hands. Her favourite book is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and she gave me a copy for my sixteenth birthday. I have started it many times but never finished!
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About the Author
is an Anglo-Nigerian writer. Her debut novel, Wahala, won multiple awards and is being adapted into a BBC series. Her second novel, This Motherless Land, was a Read with Jenna pick, shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Prize, longlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, and is also being adapted for TV.
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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