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When I think of what literature can do, and I think of the ways that literature has changed minds and opened imaginations, I want to say that we African writers must centre the African gaze.

— Lesley Nneka Arimah

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More quotes by Lesley Nneka Arimah

A world where women must remain naked until they are married; there are complications.

There needs to be something that matters to you, even if you’re inventing this impossible world filled with raffia babies.

There is nothing inherently wrong with not knowing as much as people think you should or not knowing everything. There is no need to feel any sort of shame.

So it’s not motivation to continue, but reward for work already completed. That’s the most important thing to keep in mind, that the work comes first.

A reader comes to the page and essentially learns the rules of this world, not because the rules are being told to them but because the rules are being broken. Via the consequences of the rules being broken, the reader comes to understand what the rules are.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Lesley Nneka Arimah (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.