The Only Reason Race Matters Is Because

The Problem With Gender Is That It Prescribes How We Should Be Rather Than Recognizing How We Are. Imagine How Much Happier We Would Be, How Much Freer To Be Our True Individual Selves, If We Didn't Have The Weight Of Gender Expectations.

Your Life Belongs To You And You Alone.

In Primary School In South-eastern Nigeria, I Was Taught That Hosni Mubarak Was The President Of Egypt. I Learned The Same Thing In Secondary School. In University, Mubarak Was Still President Of Egypt. I Came To Assume, Subconsciously, That He - And Others Like Paul Biya In Cameroon And Muammar Gaddafi In Libya - Would Never Leave.

I Recently Spoke At A University Where A Student Told Me It Was Such A Shame That Nigerian Men Were Physical Abusers Like The Father Character In My Novel. I Told Him That I Had Recently Read A Novel Called American Psycho,and That It Was A Shame That Young Americans Were Serial Murderers.

Why Did People Ask "what Is It About?" As If A Novel Had To Be About Only One Thing.