![]() That's such an important thing because I think that, in making work, sometimes people think that they can tell you what to make. ![]() Toni Morrison is important to me, not just because of her writing, but because of the way she occupied space. The second being: “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” How has she influenced you as an artist? Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play I love that you introduce Vagabonds! with, not one, but two Toni Morrison quotes. I was thinking to myself that if I'm making a world that is like another Lagos, then there is no way to ignore the fact that part of being in Lagos is having to face the question of God.”īelow, Osunde spoke to about Toni Morrison’s impact on her work, the necessity of music in her writing process, and how this book changed her from the inside out. “You can't really escape the religion conversation. “It’s such a thing in Nigeria,” she says. The novel, set in Nigeria, tenderly brings those on the margins of society to the center, while highlighting their passions, their frustrations, and even their complex relationships with God. “I didn’t know that, but I remember seeing that word and thinking to myself, ‘Oh no, they don't get to decide that.’” Thus, the title was born. This year, she won the ASME Award for Fiction for her short story “After God, Fear Women,” which appears in the latter half of her debut novel Vagabonds! Out on March 15, the book takes its title from the Nigerian constitution which refers to anyone who is queer or who defies cultural and societal norms as a “vagabond.” “I found that out in 2019,” she says. Since then, Osunde has had her writing published in several publications such as The Paris Review, Catapult, and Berlin Quarterly. ![]() “Being around other Nigerian writers and trading stories, talking about dreams, and seeing that some of them were going on to be published authors showed me that it was possible.” “I would always tell myself that I'd write a book eventually,” says the Nigerian writer Eloghosa Osunde, “but I just thought I was too young to have anything to say.” That long-held belief quickly changed years ago when Osunde applied for a fiction writing workshop located in Nigeria and was accepted. ![]()
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