| Adaobitricia |
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| Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani |
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 About Me |
I was born in Enugu, Nigeria. A year later, my parents moved to my hometown, Umuahia.
I spent the first part of my growing-up years in Umuahia Town—in the GRA, close to the railway station, amongst the expatriates and the Rotary Club members. I spent the second part in Umujieze Village, Umuopara, Umuahia—where none of the roads were tarred, where barefoot children yelped with wonder whenever they saw a woman driving a car, where I could look out of my bedroom window and see trees and foliage that were home to different wild animals. At present, I live in Abuja, Nigeria.
At age ten, I left home for the first time to attend boarding school in Federal Government Girls College Owerri, Imo State. From there, I went on to the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. My parents had always wanted me to be a lawyer. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to be a CIA or KGB spy. I ended up studying psychology, which, come to think of it, is somehow a cross between the two fields.
I started writing stories before I was ten. I earned my very first income from winning a writing competition at the age of thirteen. That was the first of several writing competition wins. At fifteen, I was awarded best poet and playwright in my secondary school.
My parents purchased most of the books I read as a child. Most of them were about African children living in mud huts and hawking oranges to pay their school fees. I read so many of these books that I began wishing my family also lived in a mud hut with thatched roof, and subsisted on proceeds from our yam farm. It was not until I left home and experienced being broke a few times, that I finally realised there was nothing glamorous about lack.
As a teenager, I had more freedom over what books I read. At about the same time, books started disappearing from the shops and the available few became terribly expensive. (I am told that happened as a result of the series of military dictatorships in Nigeria.) Most of the books I could get my hands on were borrowed from friends who had borrowed from other friends, and most of the books I purchased were from second-hand book sellers who offered old stock at more affordable prices. Hence, three quarters of the books I read from my teenage years either had no front or back covers, or started from page 115. Still, I enjoyed them. In fact, it was many years before I found out that one of my favourite books of all time was called The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor.
Fortunately, the Jilly Cooper and Sam Levenson and P.G. Wodehouse books all came with front and back covers!
With time, I learnt to identify the humour writers from the second-hand piles and found myself inadvertently moving away from African stories. I became concerned about this and raised the issue with different people. All of them had similar responses: ‘There is nothing to laugh about in Africa. War and poverty and hardship are our realities.’ That point of view seemed to make sense until I encountered Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes in 2006. It was one of the most dismal tales of hardship I had ever read, but the style was humorous. Eureka! I could write an ‘African story’ that did not necessarily taste bitter!
In December 2006, I was finally ready to write my novel. I started clicking away in January 2007 and today, I’m the published author of a novel titled I Do Not Come to You by Chance!
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Higher Education |
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| User Joined: August 23, 2005 |
| Last Login: August 10, 2009
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