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Sefi Atta Quotes
born 1964 Nigeria
Sefi Atta (born January 1964) is a prize-winning Nigerian-American novelist, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into many languages, radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and her stage plays have been performed internationally.
Also known as: Everything Good Will Come
Random Sefi Atta quote
14 quotes
"The challenge is always to write characters who are believable, even when readers disagree with them."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
People don’t fear the wind until it fells a tree. Then, they say it’s too much.
Sefi Atta (2012)
"Lagos is endlessly fascinating because it is always changing, yet somehow it remains the same city."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
"Memory is unreliable, but fiction allows us to search for emotional truths beyond facts."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
"I don't write to represent Nigeria. I write stories about people whose lives happen to unfold there."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
"I don't think writers have a duty to provide solutions. Our duty is to ask questions and to tell the truth as we see it."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
"Every novel teaches me something different about writing. I don't approach any book believing I already know how to write it."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
"Humour is one of the ways people survive difficult circumstances, and I try not to lose sight of that in my fiction."
Everything Good Will Come (2005)
She drinks her Eva water. Their parents were taken down by cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Respectable diseases.
I never wanted to be a writer; I just had stories I needed to tell.
I don't have much of an imagination, but I have a mind bank of details, which I play with. It's how I daydream, so writing like that is natural for me.
I get stage fright with short stories . For me it feels like stand up comedy: kill or die. I’m more confident when I begin a novel because I know I have space to fail
Most of the children were shoeless and you were confronted with the dilemma that, no matter how much money you had and no matter where you could escape to overseas, you could not save yourself from your own country.
You don't need attention to write. All you need is passion for your work and an overwhelming desire to tell a story you genuinely care about. Readers can sense your sincerity and it separates you from pretenders.
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