Naming Game: Who are your favourite Writers?
Posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 8:04 AMBy Temitayo Olofinlua
We believe on Bookaholic that one of the secrets to being a fantastic writer is to read about good writers (their works and interviews); we snooped this one out for you…
Pambazuka interviews Binyajavanga Wanaina, Kenyan founding editor of Kwani here; he talks about many things including his desire to start an online course in Creative Writing soon. When asked for five favourite authors, Binyavanga mentioned six:
- Kojo Laing, writer of Search Sweet Country, the greatest novel to come out of Africa.
- Saul Bellow – love his riff and sentences…
- Ahmadou Kourouma, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote, was a beautifully structured novel, and worked sooo well.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun, is a book of true commitment and love – I love many things about it, most of all I love the idea of somebody writing about Biafra, which happened after she was born. A huge task, fraught with risks, but she did it.
- Chinua Achebe – I love all his work, feel very privileged to work with him at Bard College.
- Witold Gombrowicz – love his absurd, dense books, with so many tiny human and natural transactions…
Who are your favourite writers? Let us know on Bookaholic…
Tags: Binyavanga, Naming Game
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love “half of a yellow sun” and “purple Hibiscus” ….Adiche is awesome…
Achebe is a genius.
Soyinka….beautiful!
Ekenu Onu….modern.
Ifeoma Chinwuba -Fearless, Waiting for Maria, Merchants of Fles
Bankele Thomas
Adichie
Emechetta
Atta
Ben Okri
Fitzgerald
Onaatje
G.G. Marquez
Dostoevsky
Jean Rhys
Dionne Brand
and the list….kai is endless O.
Sefi Atta, Adichie, Ekwensi, Soyinka, Echewa, Emecheta, Achebe, Nwapa and my new favorite book, “I do not come to you by chance” by Adaobi Nwaubani — I just love Nigerian/African writers. I suppose their works are something I can relate to very well
I’m a book whore, however, a few of the authors in my bookshelf are, Chimamanda Adichie
Ekene Onu
Chris Abani
James Patterson
Karen Kingsbury
Chinua Achebe
Wole Soyinka
Sefi Atta
Mitch Albom
Carloz Ruiz Zafon, and many more.
And yes, they are all my fave!
I read widely(anything i lay me hands on) bt afew of my fave authors-chinua Achebe, Chimamanda N Adichie(drowns u in2 her fictional world with tresses of words),Wole Soyinka,patterson,Yancey
people on my book shelf
chinua achebe
roald dahl
agatha christie
sophie kinsella/madeleine wickham
chimamanda adichie
sefi atta
ekene onu
I like works of Adichie, Achebe, Soyinka et al but this guy Helon Habila was genius in Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time. Kudos to African writers worldwide!
the concubine by elechi amadi.
Ekene Onu
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Chiedu Ifeozo
Nigerian authors who made me fall in love with reading:
Cyprian Ekwensi
Eddie Iroh
Wole Soyinka
I loved CALL ME MICHAEL, I can’t for the life of me remember who wrote the book
Haven’t read a lot of books though, but i’m about to start and build a diverse library, but so far…
Chinua Achebe
Chimamanda Adichie
sidney sheldon, Jackie collins, Dan Brown, any time, anyday..
chinua achebe, chimamanda adichie, helon habila, athol fugard: “Sizwe Bansi is dead” and ” old man and the meda,l” emechetta, mariama ba: “so long a letter.” believe me i can go on and on