The "African" Syndrome:

Why don’t we all eat the same goddamn type of food? I wonder why, in this world of vast varieties—a world changing with indescribable pace, some would preach others into stereotyping. How are you to tell me what to write, how to write it?

So if we can’t eat the same type of food, drive the same type of car, sleep in the same type of house, walk in the same manner, talk in the same manner, behave in the same manner, let writers, too, write what they like. I have always wondered how an African writer should write. Yes, fiction, must reflect or mimic the society; it must be true to existence—because whether we write abstractly, it is still all about the human experience—but does that mean if I don’t write about the demoralizing effect of widespread disease, suffering, war, family problems, witchcraft—in a certain way that has been termed “African”, it does not reflect the society from which I come from? The West have thirsted for what I call “sorry stories” about Africa and that has been constantly fed for the past decades. The Africa we see in those stories is a suffering Africa; a handicapped Africa; an Africa that cannot solve her problems; an Africa without hope! And who will give Africa hope? We Africans would give hope to Africa. The West would always want to give us aid; they would always want to tell us what to do, because we have portrayed that for too long.

In Nigeria, we complain about the poor reading culture, but readers are not going to continue reading a “single story”.

One fantastic thing I have discovered about art is that it does not conform. It is what makes art unique; it is what makes art beautiful; it is what conquers stereotyping.