Then She Wished, More Rationally, That She

I Think My First General Rule Is That Most Of My Experiences Are Not That Interesting. It's Usually Other People's Experiences. It's Not That Entirely Conscious. Somebody Tells Me A Story Or, You Know, Repeats An Anecdote That Somebody Else Told Them And I Just Feel Like I Have To Write It Down So I Don't Forget - That Means For Me, Something Made It Fiction-worthy. Interesting Things Never Happen To Me, So Maybe Two Or Three Times When They Do, I Have To Use Them, So I Write Them Down.

The Real Tragedy Of Our Postcolonial World Is Not That The Majority Of People Had No Say In Whether Or Not They Wanted This New World; Rather, It Is That The Majority Have Not Been Given The Tools To Negotiate This New World.

We Teach Girls To Shrink Themselves, To Make Themselves Smaller. We Say To Girls 'you Can Have Ambition, But Not Too Much'.

This Is Our World, Although The People Who Drew This Map Decided To Put Their Own Land On Top Of Ours. There Is No Top Or Bottom, You See.

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.