Turning Points
Labari Na 1: A short story of a Male Hausa Feminist.
A bird can only fly its best when both wings are in good shape.
The Palette Knife; or, How I Rewrote My Book
It wasn’t a matter of finding my voice, but listening to it. It had been there all along.
Throwing It Out and Starting Again
“I now see fiction—my own and that of others—as work paused but never finished.”
The Conjuring
I saw writing was not a remote magic but something one created—built.
Meeting Nadine Gordimer
“I now accept that I am forever doomed to learning from my mistakes, whether in crafting a sentence, creating a book, or living out my life. That’s the writer’s burden.”
Writers From the Other Europe
“My new professor, with his reading list of Central and Eastern European literature, had handed me a vast map with so much good territory to explore.”
Standing on the Galata Bridge
“If I could write a eulogy for him, convey his value in a single page of prose, then how could I justify wasting 80,000 words on invented characters whom I felt nothing for?”
When Your Memoir Needs Less of You
“It feels reassuring to write everything you remember, how it all felt. But to write well sometimes involves rejecting reassurance.”
My Movement from Dancing to Writing
“Was I replacing one language with another, one way of communicating with another?”
Learning to Be Embarrassed on the Page
“To risk something real as a writer is to risk making a fool of oneself.”