The Booker nominated author on the influence of Homer, struggling with Moby-Dick and feeling changed by Ama Ata Aidoo
The book I am currently reading
I read a few books at once, and am working on strengthening my reading in Italian: Scholastique Mukasonga’s Igifu, translated by Jordan Stump. Paul Mendez’s Rainbow Milkand Helena Janeczek’s La ragazza con la Leica.
The book that changed my life
Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy blew open my conceptions of what a book could do and what subjects it could address. I felt seen and acknowledged as an immigrant, an African, a young woman navigating white culture. It had a profound and lasting effect on me: I was not alone.
