The Bestselling Black Author of 2011

The top selling black author of 2011 is Lorraine Pascale. Her first book, Baking Made Easy came in at 41 in the top 100 UK book sales list. It sold 182,258 copies, and earned her publishers over £1.9m.  It was originally priced at £18.99 but mostly sold for £10.60. Here is the review that I did of it back last April: Lorraine Pascale  – the only time to be honest, that I have cooked from it.

Lorraine has proved to be the only contender for Jamie’s chef cookbook crown - his book came in at number 2 on the list, generating over £6m. Lorraine’s newest book, published last September, Home Cooking Made Easy, (at no 60) has already sold 157,817 copies, and made £1.6m. The recommended price is £20, and it is selling mostly at under £10 per copy – though, as with the first book, it also had a TV tie-in and was of course, published in time for the Christmas gift market.   

Interestingly, the only other black author on the top 100 list, is Andrea Levy, for her 2010 Booker long-listed The Long Song. It was published on the same day (6 Jan 2011, paperback edition) as Lorraine’s first book, and came in at number 58, selling 161,466 and making £863,649.92 for her publishers. These are the figures for both paperback and hardback sales, so while it may look as though there is only almost 20k copies in sales difference between Andrea’s book and Baking Made Easy, neither of Lorraine’s books are yet available in paperback. When they are, this could mean that Lorraine could be on the top sellers list for a long time to come, as generally paperbacks sell more than hardbacks.

A number of people sent me the link to Catherine Johnson’s Comment is Free article from The Guardian – entitled Where are Britain’s Black Writers? In it she laments the lack of profile and drama writing work given to black authors. Catherine is a published author and a scriptwriter. While I don’t at all disagree with her messages in the article – in fact I’d go even further to say that there should be more black reviewers and commentators across all topics, I did think that a few things have been overlooked and conflated in her article.

First is about who buys books, and what they buy. As you can see from the UK’s top 10 list, dead authors, cooking and thrillers/crime in paperback are what pay. It is this type of work that generates the income that fund other books’ publication – essentially, what I prefer to read, well-written literary books. Of course many of the readers buying any of the books on the list will be black, but in the overall scheme of things the collective black purchasing power is limited, as well as dispersed.

Catherine cites as garnering more editorial coverage because they have white authors, Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English – long-listed during the year for many literary prizes, and the recent Costa Prize new book award winning Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson – which was actually published last March, and has hardly been reviewed at all. If we take the Kelman book, its  USP was the shocking murder of the young school boy Damilola Taylor – which as a nation I don’t think that we will ever recover from. It is probably for this reason that Waterstones picked up on it, promoting it before it was published. The book is about gang culture and so the London Riots fell into its promotional path (framed as they were as being about marginalised urban youth & race - most of us knew that there were more complex than that), making it seem more topical than it might otherwise have been. Yet, Pigeon English is not on this top 100. Published as it was in the smart more expensive paperback format, with all that promotion (particularly in the press) isn’t it surprising that it does not make the top 100 in its first year? It has only just been released in a cheaper paperback format. I was particularly disappointed that Catherine’s piece failed to acknowledge what a competitive world the publishing world is – for anyone.  Though I do note that the book that has done tremendously well – is Emma Donoghue’s Room (no 4 on the top seller list.)  Just like the Kelman book, it too comes from a particularly gruesome true story that will live in the collective psyche for a long-time.

I picked up somewhere recently, that it is not actually editorial coverage and book reviews in the smart papers such as The Guardian, The Independent or The Sunday Times that sells book. What sells books in the UK is getting on BBC Radio 4. High profile, often highly and frustratingly parochial, but as a spoken word radio station, hardly mainstream.

My final point about Catherine’s article relates to the drama/script writing. I think that when so much of mainstream British TV is devoted week after week to the pursuit of the untalented, through shows like the X-Factor. I find it hard to criticise Channel 4 (which is not really a mainstream TV station) for supporting new drama writing in one of its high profile evening slots. It seems to me that even where new drama writing exists, it seems to focus on period pieces – more Downton Abbey anyone? I am sure that Birdsong (the adaptation of Sebastian’s Faulks’ book) will be great – but it is still after all another First World War adaptation. As an aside, I reckon that Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues will be made for TV or filmed before Pigeon English, simply because it is partially set in World War 2 (and it is also about Jazz.) I actually believe that Half Blood Blues, with hardly any major newspaper reviews, is a far more successful book than Pigeon English. It is a better story, well told and it did make the Booker 2011 shortlist and has won Canada's top literary prize for its Canadian-Nigerian author. So I guess that I am saying in response to Catherine, is don’t let what is getting editorial coverage blind you to what is actually being read and shared by word of mouth.

The other thing that occurs to me about the top 100 list… not that I actually know about the contents of all the books on the list - but I am going to state this anyway. It occurs to me, that the only book in the top 40 with black people in it is Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. At number 5 on the list, it was originally published in the UK in May 2010, and has sold almost 400,000 copies and made just over £2m for the publishers in 2011 (The version of The Help, that is being calculated here – is the film tie-in edition.) So yes. Maids. Again. As much as I admire the work of the actresses in the film, and I know that the wonderful Viola Davis is an Oscar contender, I am however in conflict with the thought that in 2012, the next black actress with a chance of winning this major award will have played a maid, over 70 years after Hattie McDaniels won an Oscar for also portraying a maid in Gone with the Wind. Do let me know if you have come across more positive black characters in any of the top 40 books on the top UK 2011 book sales list.

Data source: Nielsen via The Guardian

Book Club: Sunday 29 January 2012

2012 Black Reading Groups reading year will begin with To Sir With Love by E.R. Braithwaite.The overarching theme of the discussion will be “Is there a Black British Classic?" We shall meet on Sunday 29 January, 3pm in Waterstones’ Piccadilly (London) branch. Go to the 5^th floor – turn left out of the lift and go through the arch, we’ll be at the big round table on the left.

To Sir With Love was originally published in 1959 and so there will be many editions about, but if you get the 2005 Vintage Classics edition, that would be great, as it has an introduction by the author and professor of English, Caryl Phillips. (My review of his latest book Colour Me English.)

What’s it about?

When a woman refuses to sit next to him on the bus. Rick Braithwaite is saddened and angered by her prejudice. In post-war cosmopolitan London he had hoped for a more enlightened attitude. When he begins his first teaching job in a tough East End school reactions are the same.

Slowly and painfully some of the barriers are broken down. He shames his pupils, wrestles with them, enlightens them and eventually comes to love them. To Sir With Love is the true story of a dedicated teacher who turns hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into consideration for others – the story of a man’s integrity winning through against all odds.

• More about the book To Sir With Love
• Wikipedia profile of E.R. Braithwaite  
• Caryl Phillips essay in Vintage edition of the book  
• The book covers through the years: To Sir With Love

About the author 

E.R. Braithwaite was born in 1922 in British Guiana and educated there, in the United States. He served in the RAF during World War 2, he attended Cambridge University after the war. His publications include To Sir With Love (1959); Paid Servant: A Report about Welfare Work in London (1962); A Kind of Home-Coming: A Visit to Africa (1963); A Choice of Straws (1965) and Honorary White (1975).

Impressions

This is a re-reading of E.R. Braithwaites wonderful book. I cannot even remember when I first read it, though like most people I probably saw the film 1967 film, with Sidney Poitier, Lulu and Patricia Routledge (film info here) long before I read the book. Reading the book again afters so many years, it is fascinating how much of its issues and messages still resonate (as in remain unresolved) and are in fact totally contemporary. Topics such as education, and most specifically how to keep young adults engaged in learning. Getting your career started: you have the right the skills, the best qualifications, and the bitter realisation that despite everything that they are never going to hire you. Workplace politics. Mixed race relationships. It feels as though some issues have hardly changed and we are still talking about the same things. Even the economic phrases last used post-war such as ‘austerity times’ are back in vogue now. So most definitely a valuable read for a contemporary audience, particularly those interested in secondary education.

Braithwaite is part of an exclusive West Indian elite (both his parents were Oxford graduates, and he attended Cambridge University), as Phillips states in the introductory essay, he was not typical of the West Indians that would have arrived in the UK during this time. He’s superior and not easy to like, but his powers of observation are absorbing, through his eyes you get a complete sense of the exhausted and down at heel East End of London. His skills as a teacher are clever and life changing for both him and his students – at least for the time that they are within in his classroom. They come to love him and he they, and most certainly the descriptions and analysis of life in the school with the pupils, and the other teachers is the most expressively told and the where the greatest changes are seen. I particularly enjoyed the first part of the book, and the failed interviews section of the book is an essay in draining despair. The final sections I found less engaging – less flowing and a bit rushed even.

When I selected this book for the Black Reading Groups' first read of 2012, I was thinking that To Sir With Love would be one that we could consider a classic.  I am less sure on re-reading it. I think that the issue is, while I don’t think that a British classic should particularly mirror an American one, I am more clear now, that maybe as with say a Zora Neale Hurston or say an Alice Walker, or Richard Wright, a Black British classic should say something about black life in the UK.  And while To Sir With Love does give us a sense of British life, Braithwaite’s role as the observer of the indigenous Brits, however insightful and beautifully written, says very little about how life was for most Black Britons at that time. We have to go elsewhere for that. What do you think? Is there a Black British classic? What should it be about? Looking forward to the discussion.

50 Black British Books

Towards the end of last summer I was browsing through my twitter timeline and noticed a link to the 100 African-American must read books. I was incredibly impressed, but not in the least bit surprised at the breadth of the list, many of which I’d read myself over the years, such has been the power of African-American literature in the UK.  I began to wonder what a must read Black British book list would look like. I knew that I probably could be able to get to 100, but with help of friends, I was sure that we’d certainly be able to get to 50.

I started with Jacquie who runs the London Afro-Caribbean Book Club,  we shared our lists and we found that we’d already arrived at over 40 books, but with duplications of either the same book, or the same author, but with a different book.  A few months later, over dinner with Angela, the founder of the Black Reading Group, (the 12-year old reading group that I now co-ordinate and our friend Sasha, we fine-tuned the list and found that we had indeed arrived at 50 published books. Finally, I sent the list to the author, Fiona Joseph (Fiona’s biography of the philanthropist Beatrice Cadbury is now available  ), and with her contributions, the project moved into getting the list back down to 50.  Together I think that we are a formidable and knowledgeable group of commentators on literature generally, and Black British literature in particular.

My original idea for inclusion to the list is: one book - one author, published by a UK-based publishing company. No anthologies or compilations.  It did not have to be literary fiction, but it had to be the written word, so plays, poetry, biographies, even academic publications are included, but no photography books, for example. [The African American list that I had seen was primarily literary fiction.]

As indicated, we found that we had selected the same author, but often a different book. So blame me if you don’t see your favourite book here, often I have opted for the prize winning book, for example Andrea Levy’s Small Island, (32) rather than my favourite – Every Light in the House Burnin’; Dreda Say Mitchell’s celebrated first book Running Hot, (42), won the top crime writers fiction award,  and Ben Okri’s Booker prize winning The Famished Road 36, even though in both the latter cases their more recent work would be considered the much more admired of their work. In other instances, my co-workers on the project, made such strong cases, and so I have I stuck with that selection, which is why, for example, Aminatta Forna’s first book (18), the memoir about her father appears here, rather than the more recent, Commonwealth prize winning, Memory of Love.

The list spans over 200 years. I’d heard of Oladiuah Equiano’s book (15) – the oldest on the list, first published in 1789, (and I look forward to Chike Unigwe’s biography of him that will be published later this year), but I only came across Mary Prince’s book (41), published in 1831, as I was researching this list. Alex Wheatle’s sequel to Brixton Rock, Brenton Brown (46) is the newest title on the list as it was published last spring.

I am not really a theatre goer, I prefer film, and while I have seen Debbie Tucker Green (45) and Roy Williams’ (48) work performed, it is thanks to Jacquie, that the selection of playwrights is as full as it is here. On the other hand, I am eternally grateful to who ever it was in my East Anglian home town who in the late 80s and early 90s funded a series of evening presentations by Black British poets, the result is that I am happily able to include on the list Jean Binta Breeze (7), James Berry (6), Linton Kwesi Johnson (29) and Fred D’Aguiar (12) based on their memorable performances, talks and chance to buy their books a couple of decades ago.

Many on the list you may wonder are they still writing? This where are they now section of the list includes: Buchi Emecheta (14), Diran Adebayo (1), Victor Headly (23) and Patrick Augustus (4). Others, I imagine will always be on lists such as this: Zadie Smith (44), Andrea Levy (32), or Caryl Phillips (38). At the same time those that sell huge amounts Malorie Blackman (8), Mike Gayle(19), Dorothy Koomson (27) & Benjamin Zephaniah (50) are critical to this list, as their work is so widely read. I would say that the ones to watch are Helen Oyeyemi (37), Yvvette Edwards (13), Nadifa Mohamed (34) & Diana Evans (16) – and I am looking forward to seeing future work of theirs. Though the authors I admire most are the ones who also take the time to nurture and encourage others, while still creating their own work, Courttia Newland (34), Nii Ayikiwei (5), Alex Wheatle (46) and Bernadine Evaristo (17).  I can imagine how hard it would have been trying to get published in George Lamming (30) and Sam Selvon’s (43) days - incredible works, that define the Caribbean experience in 1940s & ‘50s London, but even harder to create the book that Doreen Lawrence (31) has done about the murder of her son Stephen. As I write this, the jury is deliberating it’s decision – 14 years after the crime was committed.  Doreens’s book describes her life in rural Jamaica and her early married life in the London of the 70s and it is so beautifully written.  

Like Doreen, Oona King (26) is not strictly a writer, but  I have included her book here, not only because  I thougt that she was a very good hardworking MP, but because this book is an honest look at the demanding area British politics at national and local level during the Blair years. As with the Doreen’s book, Oona also details the very private areas of her personal life too.

I hope that you will agree that this is a rich and varied list, spanning over 200 years of Black British writing. You might not agree with some of the selections here, and I may well have omitted authors you think should have been included. I am not saying that this is only list or that they are the best - though I do think that many here are, I am just thinking that the collation and sharing of a Black British literature cannon is important and we should make more effort to discuss it and let people know that it exists. I believe that this set of books should be available in all public libraries. What do you think?

Here are the 50 books in alphabetical order, with links mostly to Amazon and the earliest edition of the book that I could find. On some occasions the link will be to Wikipedia or some other interesting article that I found about the author and their work.

1.    Diran Adebayo: Some Kind of Black

2.    Sade Adendrine: Imagine This 

3.    Bola Agbaje: Not Black & White 

4.    Patrick Augustus: Baby Father

5.    Nii Ayikiwei Parkes: Tail of the Blue Bird 

6.    James Berry: When I Dance 

7.    Jean Binta Breeze: Riddim Ravings & Other Poems 

8.    Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses 

9.    E.R. Braithwaite: To Sir With Love 

10.       Constance Briscoe: Ugly 

11.       David Dabydeen: Black British History 

12.       Fred D’Aguiar: Bill of Rights 

13.       Yvvette Edwards: A Cupboard Full of Coats 

14.       Buchi Emecheta: The Joys of Motherhood 

15.       Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative & Other Stories 

16.       Diana Evans: 26a 

17.       Bernadine Evaristo: Blonde Roots 

18.       Aminatta Forna: The Devil That Danced on Water

19.       Mike Gayle: Brand New Friend 

20.       Beryl Gilroy: Black Teacher 

21.       Paul Gilroy: There Ain’t No Black in The Union Jack

22.       Colin Grant: Negro with a Hat: Marcus Garvey 

23.       Victor Headley: Yardie

24.       C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobins 

25.       Jackie Kay: Trumpet 

26.       Oona KinG: Oona King Diaries: House Music  

27.       Dorothy Koomson:  The Cupid Effect

28.       Kwame Kwei-Armah: Statement of Regret/Elmina’s Kitchen

29.       Linton Kwesi Johnson: Tings an’ Times 

30.       George Lamming: The Emigrants 

31.       Doreen Lawrence: And Still I Rise 

32.       Andrea Levy: Small Island 

33.       E.A. Markham: Hinterland  

34.       Nadifa Mohamed: Black Mamba Boy 

35.       Courttia Newland: The Scholar: A West Side Story 

36.       Ben Okri: The Famished Road 

37.       Helen Oyeyemi: The Icarus Girl 

38.       Caryl Phillips: A Distant Shore 

39.       Trevor & Mike Phillips: Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain 

40.       Hannah Pool: My Father’s Daughter 

41.       Mary Prince: The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave  

42.       Dreda Say MiTchell: Running Hot

43.       Sam Selvon: The Lonely Londoners 

44.       Zadie Smith: White Teeth 

45.       Debbie Tucker Green: Random

46.       Alex Wheatle: Brenton Brown

47.      Precious Williams: Precious 

48.      Roy Williams: Starstruck

49.   Gary Younge: No Place Like Home 

50.   Benjamin Zephaniah: Refugee Boy 

Looking ahead to 2012

Read real books!

I did this look ahead piece for the Dec/Jan (Hot in 2012) issue of Lime magazine. 


This book year has been the year of the Kindle; so many people are now reading books through this new medium. It’s been fascinating to see readers around London engrossed in their misty grey screens. I am sure that Kindles will be under thousands of Christmas trees this year. So far, I have not succumbed, mostly because I genuinely believe that books are such beautiful things, I am not ready to give up that tactile sensuality. A Kindle makes all books feel the same; going back to old books always bring back such wonderful memories. I cannot imagine that you get the same experience with a Kindle. Kindles are said to give access to millions of books, but I do wonder if the books that I really really want would be there. In contrast to the anonymity of Kindle books, I am overjoyed to see how many more publishers are giving careful thought to how books look, and are designing whole collections to be evermore gorgeous. I hope that will continue.

Looking ahead to the 2012, it seems that every moment there are literary prizes or book awards of some sort. One that is hardly mentioned is the Commonwealth prizes – there is a book award and a short story award.  These are highly competed for world-wide awards that raises entries from fifty four nations across 4 continents. For 2012 I am reassured to see that the judges include writers Bernadine Evaristo, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Kei Williams, and publishers Billy Kahora and Margaret Busby. This is an excellent selection of judges who really understand both writers and what people want to read. The application deadlines have just closed and the winners for both awards will be announced next June. 
More information here: Commonwealth Prize

Margaret Busby is also the chair of judges for the newly launched SI Leeds Literary Prize for Black and Asian women.  It will be awarded in October for an unpublished work of fiction. Supported by the Peepal Tree Press, the Leeds based publishers of Black British & Caribbean works, the first prize is to be £2,000. 
More information here: SI Leeds Literary Prize

Lizzy Attree became the chief administrator of The Caine Prize this summer. The prize awarded for a published short story to an African writer has proved a signifier of quality writing and many of today’s star names have either won or been shortlisted for the Caine prize. It will be interesting to see how Lizzy takes the prize into its next phase of evolution, celebrating the depth and breadth of African fine writing. The Caine Prize is awarded in July. More information here: The Caine Prize

I did not get to enough book events this year, but I heard good things about the Lewisham Literary Festival, I hope that they get the funding for another festival in 2012.
More information here: Lewisham Literary Festival

One event I did get to was the first ever public reading by Chibundu Onuzo. Still a history student at King’s College, London, Chibundu’s book The Spider King’s Daughter will be published by Faber & Faber in March. 
Follow: Chibundu’s blog

Founded in 1970, the book shop, community centre and  café, Centrprise in Dalston, is fighting for survival. Hackney Council is seeking to terminate the lease on its building. Centrerpise runs the Word Power books events and also hosts a series of readings and other literary events about throughout the year. For an international city of its size London is not exactly flush with bookshops for black and ethnic minority groups. It will be such a shame if we lose Centerprise. 
Sign the petition here: Save Centerprise

Interview with Lola Shoneyin

Terribly excited to have had Lola Shoneyin answer my questions. She is the author of The Secrets of Baba Segi’s Wives, which the Black Reading Group throughly enjoyed reading and talking about back in August. Lola is based in Abuja, but will be in London for the TEDxEuston event at the end of this month. Unsurprisingly this popular event is now sold out, but you can join the waiting list: info TEDxEuston.

Why did you decide to write about polygamy?

The novel is based on a true story that I heard when I was fourteen. My brother’s girlfriend, a medical doctor, saw the episode unfold. She was there when a wealthy middle-aged man dragged his new, university-educated wife to hospital to find a solution to her barrenness. I was intrigued by the drama of it all and thought it would make a great stage play. Fast forward twenty years, I needed a new project when I couldn’t find a publisher for my second unpublished novel. I wanted something fresh and exciting that I could really get my teeth into. The story of Baba Segi and his wives was perfect. It was fairly easy to write because I had a lot of material from the stories my mother told me about the polygamous home she grew up in. Polygamy is all around you in Nigeria. I don’t know a lot of people of my generation whose grandfather’s weren’t polygamists.

How have the partners or children of such marriages/partnerships responded to the book?

The general reaction to the novel has been wonderful. One lady (who is a daughter of a very prominent Nigerian polygamist) did argue that becoming a co-wife is ‘better than living as an unmarried whore’. Such statements, especially from women, demonstrate an attitude that I can only politely describe as defeatist. Many of the invasive cultural practices, though probably imposed by patriarchal thinking, are enforced and supported by women. It embarrasses me when the ‘enlightened’ women of my generation make statements that limit and diminish women. Conversely, women often write to me to thank me for writing their stories. Some say they are amazed by the similarities between my portrayal of Baba Segi’s household and the homes that they grew up in. The novel continues to be very well-received in Nigeria and I am very pleased about this.

Why did you prefer to explore this issue in a book, rather than poetry?

It’s funny you should ask that because I have realized that I have done exactly that and have for a while, albeit subconsciously, nursed strong views about polygamy. In my first collection of poems, So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg (1997) there’s a long narrative poem titled, ‘You Didn’t Know’, where a first wife addresses the folly of a new wife who has just joined the family. A few months ago, I found a journal that I kept in 1988, the year that I read Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. I wrote how much I despised Baroka, the village chief who used his influence and wealth to entrap the most beautiful damsels.

I thought that one of the strongest themes in the book is the role of the mother/motherhood, you explore that in a variety of ways, why that particular focus?

I have had a somewhat troubled relationship with my mother for most of my life. It’s amazing how much you learn about yourself during the drawn-out process of writing a novel. I wanted to explore the complexity of mother/ daughter relationships and how the nature of these relationships can have devastating consequences for young girls approaching womanhood. Several types of mothers are represented in the novel.

Do you have a favorite section of the book?

I have a few sections that are dear to me but those are not the parts that I read at book events because they are way too sad. Writing them took a lot out of me. I had to dig deep and go to some very dark areas of my consciousness.

The book had 3 different covers, which was your favorite and why?

The book has had seven different covers and that’s a very difficult question to answer, given the hard work that the publishers put into creating the different covers for the different markets.  I love them all when they are newly published. I also go through phases. Right now, I’m loving the cover of the Hebrew edition. I like the clean white background and the colourful headgear that adorns the silhouette of a mysterious black woman. It’s out this month and it’s just beautiful. 

Were you involved in the decision to change the title for the US edition?

I was taken aback when my publishers told me they wanted to change the title because some people thought having ‘Baba Segi’ in the title might be a put-off.  I decided to go with the experts. I love the name Segi. It’s not a modern name. It’s an old name like Gertrude or Beryl and to a Yorube person, it reflects the background of the main characters.

In the Black Reading Group book club discussion in August, most people were sympathetic to Baba Segi, does that fit with the response you have had elsewhere?

Yes, readers start off hating him and by the end of the novel, they find themselves feeling sorry for him. I adore Baba Segi because he is such a devoted father to the children in his household. He’s a bit of a dinosaur but that’s because he knows no better.

Do you have a favorite character?

Yes, I really enjoyed writing Iya Femi. Life dealt her some pretty awful cards but she took the world on with the every nerve in her body. I like a fighter.

Might you use any of the characters in future books?

Possibly. The novel I’m writing now is very different to Baba Segi. It’s set in Abuja, where I live at the moment and the characters are from a slightly different world.

What is your ideal writing environment?

I write on my bed. I am one of those people who can live their entire lives in their bedrooms. I think it’s a habit I picked up at university. I love my bedroom and wherever I am, it has to be a space that I am content with. I am happy when I can see my bed and even happier when I can lie on it. I do all my writing on my bed. I like leaning against the headboard, lying on my belly with my torso supported by three pillows but my favourite position is kneeling on a pillow on the floor with the laptop on bed. I can go hours.

What books did you enjoy as a child/teenager?

I read all sorts but like most girls growing up in Nigeria, I read Mills and Boon novels. There were short novels called Pacesetters authored by Africans but I was a voracious reader and there weren’t enough of them to sustain my appetite. There were loads of M&Bs though and I read them at the rate of one a day for nearly two years. After a while, I just kind of outgrew them. In my early teens however, there were three books that I read over and over again: My Father’s Daughter by Mabel Segun, The Children of Ananse by Peggy Appiah and So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba.

What book do you wish you had written?

Sula by Toni Morrison.

What’s your favourite book?

Sula is my favourite book. It explores human imperfection with sensitivity.  I have always been drawn to tragic heroes. I also admire writing that captures human frailty, our flaws, our appetite for excess. I pay tribute to Sula in The Secret Wives of Baba Segi’s Wives.

What are you reading now?

A Little Bit Marvellous by Dawn French. I love Dawn French. She makes me laugh so hard. What a great gift that is, to be able to make people laugh.

Which other writers inspire you?

John Steinbeck, Margaret Atwood, Ishmael Reed.  

Did you study writing?

I studied literature at university and did a course or two in creative writing and I am privileged to have attended the Iowa International Writing Programme in 1999. They’d just revived the programme that year so along with the other fellows, I spent six weeks touring various American states and stayed at the University of Iowa for about ten days. It was an incredible experience but I didn’t actually ‘study’ writing. I was at some point desperate to go somewhere, anywhere for a substantial amount of time I don’t have the luxury of leaving my family for anything more than a few days.  

What would you say to encourage new writers?

Embrace your life’s experiences with enthusiasm and engage rigorously with your chosen genre.

What are you working on now?

Something I really like. There’s a lot going on in Nigeria at the moment. The  Abuja I live in used to be a safe haven, but is now making the headlines for all the wrong reasons- bomb blast and religious extremism. Slowly, life as we know it in Nigeria is disappearing. I find it tragic that people can just plod on, settling into a permanent feeling of dread.

You are going to be in the UK in November for TEDx Euston in November, what are looking forward to most when you are here?

I attended a Ted Talk in London a year ago and I’ve always been a huge fan. I’m getting ready to listening to co-speakers- a few of which are my friends. What an incredible line-up!  

What book would you recommend for the Black Reading Group [We have read JM Coetzee, Tendai Hucbu, Jackie Kay, EC Osondu, Maggie Gee, Chike Unigwe, Amanda Craig, Toni Morrison. We are about to do Zadie Smith’s essay’s; then new Binyavanga Wainaina, and the French Algerian writer Faiza Guene.]

This is a really difficult one as I have a few pals on this list you’ve presented me with. As a cop-out, I would suggest Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Pirate is one of my favourite characters of all time but then I’d recommend Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street. It might be interesting to read two Nigerian books and look at the similarities and differences, to get a broader understanding of the country. To develop a robust understanding of the continent, you would also enjoy Pettina Gappah’s collection of stories. 

What question should I have asked you, and what is the answer?

Question: How are you finding Twitter?

Answer: Wndrfl.

An edited version of this interview will be published in the Dec/Jan edition of Lime magazine.