You Know, You Can Steel

All My Characters Exist In Risk, In The Places We Are Either Too Afraid To Go To, Or Have Enough Privilege Not To Have To, But Whatever The Reason, These Characters I Fashion Go Before Us And Come Back Transformed For Us. For Me, At Least.

Your Anatomy Is A Mystery That Nobody Bothers Explaining To Us. Even When We Think We Have Mastered One Woman's Body, Every Body Is Different.

I Didn't Leave Africa, I Left Nigeria, And For Political Reasons. But ... I've Never, Never Left Africa, And I Certainly Never Left What It Means To Be Ibo. That Is Something You Carry With You.

Fiction Is More Dangerous Than Nonfiction Because It Can Seduce Better. I Think We All Know This, Know That Deeper Truths Can Be Approached In Fiction Than In Fact. There Are Risks For The Reader, Because After Reading Certain Books You Find You Have Changed Irreversibly. There Are Risks For Writers: In China, Now, And Ethiopia And Other Countries Right Now, Writers Face Real Persecution.

The Igbo Used To Say That They Built Their Own Gods. They Would Come Together As A Community, And They Would Express A Wish. And Their Wish Would Then Be Brought To A Priest, Who Would Find A Ritual Object, And The Appropriate Sacrifices Would Be Made, And The Shrine Would Be Built For The God.