How well informed are Americans about the Nigerian civil war or the nation’s culture?
Not very. Of course you meet people who are specialized, who teach African issues, so they know about these things. But in the general public, people might be vaguely aware of something called Biafra. You see that Americans get their information from CNN, not from books, and this media tend to tell you what’s happening right now, so there’s more emphasis on, say, Congo or Rwanda. But they only know about the Nigerian civil war in 1967 if they’re doing research. I don’t blame them; they don’t have to know more. It’s just the way it is; you learn to accept it, understand it, or ignore it. You don’t get annoyed. Do you write with the awareness that you’re teaching readers about Nigeria and its history? Yes; it’s my understanding of what a novel does. It doesn’t just talk about characters, but how they live. If you pick up Charles Dickens, you understand what was going on in London at that time—you have the political, you have the historical, you try to explain the situation and build up t
