Elvis, Stop Dat! You Know It Is

As With Much Of The World's Problems, They Become Public--or Much More Of Interest--the Moment They Begin To Impact The West.

My Books Are Often Shelved Around Those Of Chinua Achebe And Margaret Atwood, Or Chimamanda Adichie And Monica Ali. All Of This Depends, Of Course, On The Bookstore And How Conversant The Shelf Stocker Is With The Alphabet.

All Power Within The Microcosm Of My World Was Held And Wielded By People Who Look Like Me. Plus, I Think Nigerians All Have This Sense That They Are Better Than Everyone, Including White People. So I Have The Privilege Of A Certain Distance. It May Just Be That. So In A Sense, I Can't Claim That As Any Ability That I Have, Simply A Matter Of Circumstance.

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.

What I Do Is Create A Lens Through My Work That Corrects My Readers' Cognitive Dissonance And Says: You Will See All Of It - Not What You Want Or What Makes You Comfortable, But All Of It. And You Will Not Erase What Displeases You.