Taiye Selasi, born 2 November 1979, is an English writer born to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She has published three collections of short stories and the novel, Ghana Must Go.
Quotes on writing:
- I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
- As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.
- The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.
- As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.
- I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.
- I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.
- That’s what makes writer’s block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That’s beyond frightening.
- So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.
- I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are inaccurate, but that they’re incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn’t that it’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s incomplete.
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