Quotes by Chris Abani

About Chris Abani:

Christopher "Chris" Abani is a Nigerian and American author. He is part of a new generation of Nigerian writers working to convey to an English-speaking audience the experience of those born and raised in "that troubled African nation".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. ...

Chris Abani

In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

Chris Abani

Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot.

Chris Abani

If I don't get at least one e-mail every ten minutes, I feel unloved. Even junk mail makes me feel seen. Sad, I know. Sigh.

Chris Abani

Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is.

Chris Abani

That women are mysterious and unknowable is something every young man grows up believing. Men, on the other hand, never think of themselves as mysterious or confusing, and we are often at a loss as to why women want to figure us out.

Chris Abani

When I was growing up in Nigeria - and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from - there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which ...

Chris Abani

There is no living African writer who has not had to, or will not have to, contend with Achebe's work. We are either resisting him - stylistically, politically, or culturally - or we are writing toward him.

Chris Abani

Author Bio

  • NameChris Abani
  • DescriptionNigerian author
  • BornDecember 27, 1966
  • CountryNigeria
  • ProfessionWriter; Poet
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Prince Claus Awards