‘How I became the writer I am today’
“Stay with Me”author Ayobami Adebayo is one writer to watch. Her first novel published by Quida Books in Nigeria, which recently won the 9mobile Literature Prize, has been on various shortlists across the globe. The novel was shortlisted for the Kwani Manuscript Project as work-in-progress in 2013. After it was published in 2017, it was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize.
Although I think the importance of prizes to a writer is layered in itself. There are fantastic books that don’t win prizes and it does not make them any less good. It was a strong shortlist: the other books were also quite good. So, it is a pleasant surprise and a great honour that when the judges would make their final decision, they picked “Stay with Me”.
She was the one that submitted it to the publishers. Canongate Publisher picked it up in the United Kingdom; Quida Books picked it up in Nigeria; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. picked it up in the United States and actually Kwani Books Manuscript Prize in Kenya. Kwani had already picked it up in 2013 because I had submitted it for its manuscript project. Although the brilliant Ugandan writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi won, mine was shortlisted.
Also, I grew up in Nigeria. My family is from Ilesha. My family lived in Lagos, Ilesha, Ile-Ife at the Obafemi Awolowo University. I studied in Obafemi Awolowo University. So, those are the places that I am very familiar with in Nigeria, and that I can reach for the texture easily. Growing up was fun. One of the highlights that could I remember, which fed into my creative pursuits was our visits to my grandmother’s.
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