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?<\/b><\/p>\n
The first thing I observe is by way of alternate seeing; catching a whiff of the air and holding it in my lungs to determine what\u2019s changed. My inability to let that air go says a lot about the change, my unwillingness to taint what\u2019s now pure, what\u2019s now green and loving and peaceful. I see home the way I have always wanted home to look like\u2014 a home that embraces me the way I have always wanted it to embrace me. I am confronted with an inconceivable future. I see a place, finally coming to terms with its potential and thriving to make the most out of it. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You’ve been selected for a mission to the moon. Which African author are you taking and why?<\/b><\/p>\n Ah, a journey to the moon? I\u2019ll definitely bring Binyavanga Wainaina along. I think it would be interesting to lurk in the sides of the moon together and hear what his restive mind would make of that journey. He is such an expansive mind and I am sure I will get a recap of the journey in his writing.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What invention do you think would change the lives of Africans today?<\/b><\/p>\n I will love to translate this to mean what do I think will change the lives Africans, hence, my answer is, genuine love. Love always works out when it is unpretentious. Love for land, love for brothers and sisters, love for our beautiful skin.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two things you\u2019re doing when not reading or writing?<\/b><\/p>\n Learning how to breakdance in the shower, and secondly, learning how to read and write better, which ultimately is still reading and writing. Yes, I know I am doomed.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To what extent has African literature envisioned an African future?<\/b><\/p>\n I am not sure if it has to a serious extent envisioned a future\u2014but I think most of what \u2018Traditional African literature\u2019 has done is to dedicate too much energy to excavating the past and looking at the society as a group. I am happy \u2018new\u2019 African writers now bring their lens to focus on their bodies and by extension the self; this includes what it means for them to exist a world of erasing borders. Somehow, I think that has an implication on the future, because it\u2019s a literature of accepting oneself in a world that rejects it. This acceptance of the self prepares the stage for a bright future.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What book do you think best captures Afrofuturism?<\/b><\/p>\n