Taiye Selasi
Taiye Selasi
Taiye Selasiis a writer and photographer. Of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, she describes herself as a "local" of Accra, Berlin, New York and Rome...
NationalityGhanaian
ProfessionWriter
CountryGhana
block heavens maybe run somewhere tap turned
That's what makes writer's block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That's beyond frightening.
class sight subjective
Sight is subjective. We learned that in class.
thinking literature problem
I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn't that they are inaccurate, but that they're incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn't that it's inaccurate, it's that it's incomplete.
who-i-am defining twins
Being a twin, and being my sister's twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn't know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.
mother father boston
I'm not sure where I'm from! I was born in London. My father's from Ghana but lives in Saudi Arabia. My mother's Nigerian but lives in Ghana. I grew up in Boston.
writing pages matter
When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.
play long fiction
I've written fiction for as long as I can remember; it's always been my preferred form of play.
pain yoga retreat
The thing that comes most frequently to me on yoga retreats is excruciating pain in my hips.
ambition writing eight
I was four when I announced my ambition to write, eight when I began publishing such claims.
party ghana human-life
Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.
writing heart mind
I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
creative identity west
I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.
summer ghana west
The summer I finished my first novel 'Ghana Must Go,' I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.
beautiful home dark
I live in Rome and five minutes from my flat is a church where you can walk in and see this beautiful Caravaggio. Just the way this man uses dark paint: dark to create dark to create dark, the layering of the darkness in his work. I just race home: I want to create!