First Draft

Academic and author of Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions, Omolola Ogunyemi, wanted her debut novel to capture the ways in which the lives of Nigerian women have changed over several generations: ‘I was always intrigued by stories of how things used to be, especially when I found out that my grandmother’s older sister was once married to a woman who couldn’t have children of her own, and that this was once a perfectly acceptable part of the culture in her region of what is now Nigeria.’ 

When Eloghosa Osunde was working on her debut novel, VAGABONDS!, she learnt that writing it was the easy part: ‘Writing a book changes you. At the idea stage of any work, there are all these plans you have for what you will do with a story—all valid!—but I’ve learned that every piece of work I see to completion has its own intentions for me, too.’

Journalist, poet, blogger and public servant, Tolu Ogunlesi, has ‘been meaning to start blogging again’. He finds, however, that social media is ‘making us worse communicators: too quick to comment, disdainful of nuance, easily carried away by insignificant stuff, and oblivious to the truly significant.’