I get stage fright with short stories. For me it feels like standup comedy: kill or die. I'm more confident when I begin a novel because I know I have space to fail.

I was my class playwright and I wrote plays set in villages with kings and chiefs.My plays were about treason and betrayals. If they were influenced by Macbeth, they were also influenced by Nigerian plays I had seen and Village Headmaster, a television drama series I had watched as a child.

I don't write non-fiction because I get bored. Some of my writing is autobiographical, but not the way readers imagine. I use my memory of settings, events and people. I weave history into my stories, but my narratives are made up.

At some point, practicality requires that you reach out to people in the business. You have to take care of business if you value your work.

I always begin [a novel] with outlines, but they change and so do my endings and beginnings.

I can't say L'Etranger influenced me to write, but for the first time I considered the possibility of telling a story that resembled my own experiences in my own voice.

As a student in England, I studied French and English literature. I read L'Etranger and the rhythm of the novel felt familiar to me - very African.