You know, I don’t think of myself as anything like a ‘global citizen’ or anything of the sort. I am just a Nigerian who’s comfortable in other places.
Nigerian politics has been, since the military dictatorships, largely non-ideological. Rather than a battle of ideas, it is about who can pump in the most money and buy the most access.
Each of my novels has come from a different place, and the processes are not always entirely conscious. I have lived off and on in America for a number of years and so have accumulated observations, found things interesting, been moved to tell stories about them.
I think it’s possible to have been a happy child, as I was, and still question and push back with regard to societal conventions.
I’ve always been curious about how much of our cultural baggage we bring to what and how we read. I suspect we bring a lot, although we like to think we don’t.
‘No Sweetness Here’ is the kind of old-fashioned social realism I have always been drawn to in fiction, and it does what I think all good literature should: It entertains you.
Sometimes novels are considered ‘important’ in the way medicine is – they taste terrible and are difficult to get down your throat, but are good for you.
I think I’m ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian – that’s home; my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America.
Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in ‘real’ African culture, before it was tainted by the West, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.
Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised recollection of personal experience, is often as much about character and story and emotion as fiction is.
Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.