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

I think human beings exist in a social world. I write realistic fiction, and so it isn't that surprising that the social realities of their existence would be part of the story.

Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.

Never ever accept 'Because You Are A Woman' as a reason for doing or not doing anything.

The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.

There has always been a strange dissonance between the public and the private in Nigeria.

Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.