Sefi Atta

Sefi Atta (born January 1964) is a prize-winning Nigerian-American novelist, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into many languages, radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and her stage plays have been performed internationally. Awards she has received include the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

Quotes

 * I don't have much of an imagination, but I have a mind bank of details, which I play with. It's how I daydream, so writing like that is natural for me.
 * Sefi Atta's quote


 * People don’t fear the wind until it fells a tree. Then, they say it’s too much.
 * Sefi Atta (2012). “Everything Good Will Come”, p.73, Interlink Publishing


 * You don't need attention to write. All you need is passion for your work and an overwhelming desire to tell a story you genuinely care about. Readers can sense your sincerity and it separates you from pretenders.
 * Sefi Atta's quote


 * I never wanted to be a writer; I just had stories I needed to tell.
 * Sefi Atta's quote


 * She drinks her Eva water. Their parents were taken down by cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Respectable diseases.
 * Sefi Atta's quote in her book a bit of difference.


 * Most of the children were shoeless and you were confronted with the dilemma that, no matter how much money you had and no matter where you could escape to overseas, you could not save yourself from your own country.
 * Sefi Atta's quotep. 134, Madness in the Family.


 * I enjoy writing plays most. I haven't written a radio play in a while and I don't write short stories anymore because the process of submitting them depressed me. I really enjoy revising novels, but drafting them can be a pain.
 * 

Everything Good Will Come (2005)

 * Cooking was a skill, I thought; an art form. In our country, we appreciated the end result, but not the craft, perhaps because we didn’t have fancy names. Paring was “cut it.” Julienne was “cut it well.” Chopping was “cut it well well,” and so on till you had puree, which would probably be “mash it.” And, if anyone was measuring any ingredient in a kitchen, it meant that they really didn’t know what they were doing.


 * It occurred to me that there was nothing more precious than satisfaction. That it was possible to end up committing a crime just because you were contaminated by a little discontent. You could convince yourself that you were satisfied, then someone could come along and say, 'But I can offer you more', and then you could begin to think, My life is not worth much after all. In fact, you could tell yourself, My life was completely worthless from the start.
 * Pg. 247