It’s 2118 and you’ve arrived in Lagos for a book festival. When you step out of the airport, what is the first thing you see?
A gigantic billboard stating that 90 per cent of Africans bought a book as a gift for their loved ones in the last year.
You’ve been selected for a mission to the moon. Which African author are you taking and why?
JM Coetzee. Because his writing has a brutal honesty that promotes the most vivid imagination.
What invention do you think would change the lives of Africans today?
One that makes it possible for unemployed Africans to enjoy social benefits. This would be a blessing to both the rich and the poor in more ways than one in our effort to attain a progressive society.
Two things you’re doing when not reading or writing?
Trying to make money as a businessman, and to spend it. Visualising a utopian world where all humans are happy and contented.
To what extent has African literature envisioned an African future?
I think to the extent of the imaginative capability of our individual minds. As a people, to the extent to which we are willing to propagate and uphold our own stories.
What book do you think best captures Afrofuturism?
None that I have read. But I think that our individual and collective story as a people, mirrored through our failures, successes and relentless quest for a better African society, best captures Afrofuturism.
You wake up one morning to find that you’ve grown a pair of wings. What do you do?
I will fly and explore the farthest corners of the universe, and then I will capture my adventures in the most riveting tale ever told.
Name one book that made you think differently about the world.
‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
What is the most difficult part of your creative process?
Picking a thread through the story, and trying not to lose it in the twists and turns as the pages increase.
What is your African dream?
An Africa where intellectualism is valued above material possessions and political power, where we pride ourselves on creativity.