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To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images.
Yet here, through personal essays from 24 of its writers, a more accurate picture comes into view, and in her essay, Lola Shoneyin highlights the importance of memory in carving out our national identities from the moment we’re born.
Powerful, lyrical and entirely unforgettable, the essays from OF THIS OUR COUNTRY weave together a living portrait of Nigeria, one that is as beautiful as it is complex.
Lola Shoneyin
In addition to her award-winning novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Lola Shoneyin has written three volumes of poetry, So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg, Song of a Riverbird, and For the Love of Flight, as well as three children’s books: Mayowa and the Masquerade; Do As You Are Told, Baji; and Iyaji, the Housegirl. Shoneyin is the founder of Book Buzz Foundation, which organizes the Ake Arts & Book Festival. She also runs Ouida Books, a publishing house and one of the most vibrant bookstores in Nigeria. Shoneyin lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
More by Lola Shoneyin
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