Sometimes I feel very alone. I am a bit of a nomad. Many people in sort of emerging countries, emerging economies, find themselves displaced. So there is that sense, and so I’m part of a whole, I think, group of displaced people. Chris Abani Read Quote
I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style. Chris Abani Read Quote
I have to have three or four books going simultaneously. If I’m not impressed in the first 20 pages, I don’t bother reading the rest, especially with novels. I’m not a book-club style reader. I’m not looking for life lessons or wanting people to think I’m smart because I’m reading a certain book. Chris Abani Read Quote
The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things. Chris Abani Read Quote
We often think that language mirrors the world in which we live, and I find that’s not true. The language actually makes the world in which we live. Language is not – I mean, things don’t have any mutable value by themselves; we ascribe them a value. Chris Abani Read Quote
My mother was English. My parents met in Oxford in the ’50s, and my mother moved to Nigeria and lived there. She was five foot two, very feisty and very English. Chris Abani Read Quote
My search is always to find ways to chronicle, to share and to document stories about people, just everyday people. Stories that offer transformation, that lean into transcendence, but that are never sentimental, that never look away from the darkest things about us. Chris Abani Read Quote
If I don’t get at least one e-mail every ten minutes, I feel unloved. Even junk mail makes me feel seen. Sad, I know. Sigh. Chris Abani Read Quote
I love essays, but they’re not always the best way to communicate to a larger audience. Chris Abani Read Quote
Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot. Chris Abani Read Quote
