[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f9zzyXUes0zlMMZknBuufaP0PAIoAt-5GyI_hL5mn5Fw":3,"$fmHciQNzzOOytihFLIp0ZVZTLUx3ZiPWV3X78AbNk89E":12},{"author":4,"tags":11},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":9,"bio_jsonld":9,"slug":10,"image_url":9},71547,"Taiye Selasi","T",36,null,"taiye-selasi",[],{"quotes":13,"pagination":84},[14,22,28,34,40,46,53,59,65,71],{"id":15,"quote_text":16,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":19,"source":20,"quote_tag":21,"commentary":9},3462811,"I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.",6,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":23,"quote_text":24,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":25,"source":26,"quote_tag":27,"commentary":9},3462803,"When I’m working, I’m so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It’s only after – long after – I’ve finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":29,"quote_text":30,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":31,"source":32,"quote_tag":33,"commentary":9},3462793,"The big ideas always come in flashes. I don’t really craft stories that much. I genuinely don’t know where these people come from, and I’ve often wondered if writing is just a socially acceptable form of madness.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":35,"quote_text":36,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":37,"source":38,"quote_tag":39,"commentary":9},3462778,"When writing screenplays, it’s a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn’t appear on the screen.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":41,"quote_text":42,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":43,"source":44,"quote_tag":45,"commentary":9},3462774,"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.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":47,"quote_text":48,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":49,"source":50,"quote_tag":51,"commentary":52},3462766,"I wouldn’t mind my book being called an African novel if it didn’t invite lazy readings.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],"**The Backstory**\nTaiye Selasi's statement reflects her concern with the pigeonholing and reductionism that often accompanies categorizations based on geographical or cultural identity. In 2005, when she wrote \"Bye-Bye Babar,\" a short story published in The New Yorker, she was grappling with the implications of being identified as an African writer. Her work challenges readers to look beyond such labels and engage with complex themes.\n\n**The Hidden Insight**\nSelasi's words reveal a tension between authenticity and expectation, highlighting how cultural or geographical categorizations can lead to \"lazy readings.\" This means that when we assign a novel to a particular genre or identity, it may encourage readers to approach the work with preconceptions rather than engaging deeply with its content.\n\n**How to Use This**\nWhen approaching creative projects or professional endeavors, consider the potential for your work to be misunderstood due to external categorizations. To avoid \"lazy readings,\" Selasi suggests that we should strive for a more nuanced understanding of our audience and their expectations, ensuring that our message is not reduced to simplistic interpretations based on preconceived notions.",{"id":54,"quote_text":55,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":56,"source":57,"quote_tag":58,"commentary":9},3462745,"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.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":60,"quote_text":61,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":62,"source":63,"quote_tag":64,"commentary":9},3462730,"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.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":66,"quote_text":67,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":68,"source":69,"quote_tag":70,"commentary":9},3462712,"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.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":72,"quote_text":73,"author_id":5,"source_id":74,"has_image":18,"author":75,"source":76,"quote_tag":77,"commentary":83},2558818,"I wouldn't mind my book being called an African novel if it didn't invite lazy readings.",4,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[78],{"id":79,"tag":80},5537875,{"id":81,"tag_name":82},11,"book","**The Backstory**\n\nTaiye Selasi, a Ghanaian-American novelist and short story writer, likely uttered these words during an interview or public discussion around the time of her novel's release. At that point in her career (2005), she was navigating the complexities of identity, culture, and representation in literature. Her experiences as a black woman writing about Africa were already influencing her perspective on how her work would be perceived.\n\n**The Hidden Insight**\n\nSelasi is not merely expressing frustration with being pigeonholed or stereotyped; she's pointing out that categorizing her novel as \"African\" can also invite complacency from readers. By doing so, they might miss the nuanced exploration of themes and experiences within the book, reducing it to a simplistic notion of \"African-ness.\"\n\n**How to Use This**\n\nWhen approaching your own creative projects or professional endeavors, consider the potential for both praise and criticism to become a hindrance to deeper engagement. Avoid letting labels or categorizations dictate how others perceive your work; instead, focus on encouraging readers or listeners to engage with it on multiple levels, fostering more thoughtful, less lazy interpretations.",{"currentPage":85,"totalPages":74,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":86},1,10]