The novels I love, the ones I remember, the ones I re-read, have an empathetic human quality, or 'emotional truth'. This quality is difficult to fully define, but I always recognise it when I see it: it is different from honesty and more resilient than fact, something that exists not in the kind of fiction that explains but in the kind that shows.

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

The only reason race matters is because of racism.

We do not just risk repeating history if we sweep it under the carpet, we also risk being myopic about our present.

The higher you go, the fewer women there are.

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

Being defiant can be a good thing sometimes," Aunty Ifeoma said. "Defiance is like marijuana - it is not a bad thing when it is used right.