I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is obvious to everyone else.

If I had not grown up in Nigeria- and if all I knew of Africa were of popular images- I too would think that africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people fighting sensless wars, dying of poverty and aids- unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind white foreigner.

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.

This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.

Because I am female, I’m expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important.

I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.

My characters are usually composites. I wish I could pretend that I make up all of these characters, but no. I steal from people. But people will say to me, "Oh, that's me!" and I'm thinking, no, that's not you!