An Introduction

I was born in November, 1967 in Kaltungo, my hometown, in north eastern  Nigeria. My father started life as a preacher with the white missionaries, then he left them and became a civil servant, working with the Ministry of Works. As a result we moved around the north eastern towns a lot: Bauchi, Azare, Gombe – we moved to Gombe when I was four and that was where I went to primary and secondary schools. Although I have seven siblings – I am the third – I grew up mostly alone with my parents. My elder brothers were sent to school in the village to learn our language, the younger ones were too young to interest me, and so I grew up alone.

I guess that sense of being alone (I won’t call it loneliness) has come to characterize my whole life – I was always the outsider, watching, unable to fully participate (I am the only one in my family who is not fluent in my mother tongue). In a way being the perpetual outsider was good preparation for the writing life: because I am always on the sidelines, unobserved, I am able to observe more clearly. This is a role that has continued to dog me  I live in Norwich at the moment, and sometimes on the street I discover that I am the only black person on the whole street, the outsider.

Early in life my solitude pushed me to find company in books, and that was my salvation. I grew up reading anything I could lay my hands on: fiction, poetry, history, religion, science textbooks (I actually went to a science secondary school.) To pass time I’d make an analysis of each major character in the novels I read – I still have the notebook I kept when I was fifteen, and whenever I go through it I never cease to be amazed by the enthusiasm and single-mindedness I see there. I was going to be a writer, and that was it.   

In university my horizon widened, for the first time I met published authors, lecturers who read my work and told me I had promise. I also discovered politics, something my life up to then had been totally devoid of. These, I guess, are what I always write about, will always write about: being alone, search for fulfillment, and the political.

Read more... The Night of The Monster