I read Macbeth as a secondary student in Nigeria and it was like an African play to me. It had all the right elements - witches, kings and assassinations.

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 don't remember being a keen reader, but apparently I was. My aunt told me that whenever I was teased for reading, I would say, "To each his own."

I never wanted to be a writer; I just had stories I needed to tell.

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.

I had stopped writing plays set in villages because they were not relevant to my experiences and I knew my English classmates wouldn't appreciate them.