‘Some Stories are Kind to Me’ Innocent Chizaram Ilo’s First Draft

Writer and Africa winner of the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Innocent Chizaram Ilo, is a perfectionist. ‘I can rewrite a paragraph so many times before finally deciding that it does not even belong to a piece.’ Our questions are italicized.  What books or kinds of books did you read growing up? I read everything growing up. From Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, Chike and the River, A Man of the People); Buchi Emecheta (The Joys of Motherhood), Chukwuemek
 

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