Head above water

The lively young voices of the girls at the Methodist High School rang out. Their vibrant·silvery echoes burst out of the confines of the school\u27s Assembly Hall, only to reverberate in and among the trees in front of the school compound, and to reach as far as the grey hideous walls that separated the front of the school from the loco-yard opposite. Those grey walls and the elegant trees, all seemed to take up the rhythm of the military Methodist tune in their determination to be like the khakied uniform girls within, pilgrims, pilgrims of Christ

That first novel

Having one\u27s first novel published is not as glamorous an affair as the media makes readers believe. The would-be author would start by convincing himself, that \u27this is it, this is what I want to do, I must write, I must tell a story or do nothing else. It is novel writing for me, no matter how long it takes, no matter whether I\u27m published or not. Write I must, and a novel it must be\u27

A Nigerian writer living London

In the Ditch was like my sixth child. I felt exactly like that, just as if I had had another child. It came out in June 1972, when I was twenty-seven, almost five years to the day when I first started to send articles to magazine editors. Its publication showed me another thing about creative writing, namely that one does well in the topic one knows best. Because I was living in the \u27ditch\u27, a lone parent with five children, I was able to write in more depth about this. I realized then that I would not have to wait till I was forty before writing. If only I could stick to the subjects I knew best, and write about them truthfully, about the way I felt or saw them, in the type of language I could manage best, then I would not go wrong

The Bride Price

89 tr.; 19 cm

Het hoofd boven water /

Oorspr. uitg.: Londen : Afo, 1986