I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.

If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.

She wanted to ask him why they were all strangers who shared the same last name.

I was stained by failure.

Papa sat down at the table and poured his tea from the china tea set with pink flowers on the edges. I waited for him to ask Jaja and me to take a sip, as he always did. A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you love.

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.