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 Nigerian President and the Nigerian Poet Laureate welcoming us at the gates. I would love for Lagos to be a cloud city. <\/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 I would take Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes because they would make sure that the moon would be the best African literature colony in the galaxy. What they don\u2019t know about literature is not worth knowing. On the other hand, what they do know, you better write down.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What invention do you think would change the lives of Africans today?<\/b><\/p>\n Fast high speed Internet accessible to the whole of Africa for free. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two things you\u2019re doing when not reading or writing?<\/b> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Checking out good art on my travels is a must, and I also like running in cities I travel to. It is a great way to capture a city\u2019s real beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To what extent has African literature envisioned an African future?<\/b><\/p>\n I think we are at the beginning of an African Renaissance. There are many signs that we are witnessing the first fruits of the expanding African canon. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What book do you think best captures Afrofuturism?<\/b><\/p>\n On a poet tip, I would recommend \u2018<\/span>Electric Arches\u2019<\/span><\/i> by Eve L. Ewing; or for a beginner\u2019s way in, read \u2018<\/span>Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora<\/span><\/i>\u2019 edited by Sheree R. Thomas, as it has stories, essays, and novel excerpts.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You wake up one morning to find that you’ve grown a pair of wings. What do you do?<\/b><\/p>\n Call Ozwald Boateng to tailor me a suit to match my wings, tell Oprah Winfrey and Ta-Nehisi Coates I am ready for my interview, and ask Ryan Coogler to cast me in Black Panther 2, 3 4 and 5. I would do my own stunts, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Name one book that made you think differently about the world?<\/b><\/p>\n