Congratulations to Chinaza for being nominated for the Nommo Award!

What’s your favorite type of story to read and to write?

I like reading stories that stir up my imagination and sense of wonder. Stories that make me think, ask questions and enable me see the world from a different perspective are my absolute favourites. Emotive, yet intellectual stories with excellent structure and interesting ideas are my sweet spot. I dislike cliches. As much as I understand that they may be necessary, but I prefer to read stories that are fresh and bring something new – funny how disliking clichés is a cliché? Haha. I have a very experimental way of looking at the world so seeing characters make decisions and seeing the consequences of these actions teaches me something – about human nature, about life. Sometimes, stories that are lighthearted are what I prefer because life is already dull enough and morally instructive stories can be too dull, but laughter is the right medicine. When I read a book, I want to be transported into freshly imagined worlds that stir endless possibilities.

I like to write stories that help me understand the world.  My discomfort with the world stems from how we cling onto outdated constructs and ideals. Why do we need to cling to ideals that cause more division than unity? I also see the world as a strange place, where many fantastical things happen in the mundane yet we ignore these things mainly because we are trained in what to think instead of how. There are stories about wonder, stories that terrify, yet are delightful everywhere I look. I am learning to write stories about our connectedness as a civilisation; to explain my idea of the world in my stories, because I am working on becoming as conscious and intentional as possible. My hope is that my writing will be the right balance between entertaining and pivotal.

As an African writer, what unique perspectives do you bring to your fiction?

I hope that my stories make people ask questions because it is said that “person wey dey ask question no dey miss road.” One who asks questions cannot lose their way. A unique voice of an analytical Igbo thinker who is trying to make sense of this new, changing, yet constant world is what I bring to my fiction. Someone who understands that nothing is truly as it seems because we do not know that much about the world in which we find ourselves, but is willing to at least explore what is available and inquire about what is not. I hope to make people look beyond what lies in front of them and understand that what we think are ideals are just stories handed to us from our past which may have worked for their time but are irrelevant for the current age.

What are your favorite themes to explore in your writing?

I’m not sure I have a favourite theme yet because I’m still in a phase of self discovery with my stories. I’m still trying to understand what the stories are trying to say. So far, most of my stories have a similar idea about the world as a dysfunctional system where nothing you really do matters. So maybe, for now, the idea of death as a theme interests me.