A book reads us as much as we read a book. - Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Had I known that my first novel would become required reading for all students applying to university in Nigeria, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to write it. It has been an incredible honor for me to have a book read by so many people and especially exciting to know that the novel is, in some small way, inspiring a new generation of writers.

The warmth that I feel toward Okigbo actually comes from hearing my father speak about him. In the late 1950s, my father was one of his students at Fiditi Grammar School, Ibadan, where Okigbo taught Latin and English literature and was also the sports coach. I suspect that my dad, the football team’s goalkeeper, might have been one of Okigbo’s favorite students. He recounts the story of how Okigbo came to him one afternoon and asked if he’d ever traveled in a car that went as fast as one hundred miles an hour. “Hop in,” said Okigbo to my father, and then proceeded to dazzle him with a speedy drive to the University of Ibadan in his red sports car.

Thanks to my character, I too have begun to group my books in non-traditional ways. Thus far, my groupings, unlike Morayo’s, have been less about characters talking to each other and more about pairing authors. For example, I have Marilynne Robinson and Toni Morrison’s Home’s next to each other as well as God Help the Child next to Lila as there are thematic similarities in both pairings.