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The Interview: Bookbag Talks To Peter Akinti (view source)
Revision as of 14:31, 14 May 2018
, 14:31, 14 May 2018no edit summary
* '''BB: James Baldwin turns up several times in the text, and we love the quotation you chose for the beginning of the book. How much of an influence has his work been to you?'''
PA: When I first read [[Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky|Dostoyevsky's ''Notes From The Underground]] '' and got to know and love his character, underground man, I knew I wanted to write. When I read James Baldwin I understood why I wanted to write.
* '''BB: Can literature make real changes to society?'''
* '''BB: What are you reading now?'''
PA: Not reading anything right now. I’m trying to finish my second novel. Me and the wife have just had a baby boy - We heard somewhere that James Salter wrote a good love scene so we started reading his novel [[''Sport and a Pastime by James Salter|Sport and a Pastime]] '' together at nights to try to get over the whole home-birth experience. That lasted three days - my little boy wasn't having any of it. The last book I read was [[The Lover by Marguerite Duras|Marguerite Duras's ''The Lover]]''. I had to sit still for five minutes, slurping coffee with envy after I read the opening to that book...
''One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place, a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said: "I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged."''