About Helen Oyeyemi: Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemi is a British novelist. In 2013 she was included in the Granta Best Of Young British Novelists list.
I would like to have nothing to do with you for hours on end and then come back and find you, come back with things I’ve thought and found all on my own— on my own, not through you.
[i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THAT’S EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i]
In Egypt, like everywhere, the land is made to fit the sky; but here it is more so. Here it is possible to say, “This is land," and point, and “This is sky," and point, but the eyes can’t discover the dividing line.
He answered with a smile. The darkest and most malignant I had ever seen, too strong to be voluntary. I thought. But I didn't dare turn to it, in case it wasn't there.
both boys wrote in their diaries, at different times.
He honestly expected her to believe that she could make a bad offering and her ancestors wouldn't mind.
I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.
She looked at the last thing she had written and she felt calm. Then she crossed the words out vehemently, scribbling until even the shape of the sentence was destroyed.
Please tell me a story about a girl who gets away." I would, even if I had to adapt one, even if I had to make one up just for her. "Gets away from what, though?" "From her fairy godmother. From the happy ending that isn't really happy at all. Please...
Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a chic governess. Sylvie approved of Miri, even at the same time as she was confused by her. "It's a style at least," she sa...
Dear Miranda Silver, There are extra floors, with lots of people in them. They are looking people. They look at you, and they never move. We do not like them. We do not like this house, and we are glad to be going away. This is the end of our letter.
I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.
In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a...
Years ago a friend and fellow writer, Nick Antosca, once made a remark about it being best not to threaten, but to simply act. An effective way of going about things, I think.
Fairy tales, because they have a very clear structure, are easier to interfere with. Also they have this really weird logic: the kind of logic that you only really experience when you're not feeling very well, or as a child.
In my family, telling stories is just a way of life.
The first book I really loved was 'Little Women' - I'd have given anything for Beth to have been allowed to live; I remember crying very much over her death, trying to make the words change just by staring at them. I loved 'Anne of Green Gables,' too...
Home is where your teapots are.
I have been in love with Emily Dickinson's poetry since I was 13, and, like an anonymous post on findagrave.com says, 'Dear Emily - I hope I have understood.' Emily's poems are sometimes difficult, often abstract, on occasion flippant, but her mind i...
Dickinson is my hero because she was a joker, because she would never explain, because as a poet she confronted pain, dread and death, and because she was capable of speaking of those matters with both levity and seriousness. She's my hero because sh...
I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot. I think I'll always be more of a reader than a writer, definitely. There are sooo many books in the world I haven't read, sometimes I feel as if they're all piled on top of my head weighing me...
