How Long Did It Take to Finish a Novel?

I'm back! And very happy about it. This week, Nigerian novelist Ayobami Adebayo speaks to me from her home in Lagos. Ayobami is the author of 2017's Stay With Me, and A Spell of Good Things, which was published in the UK last week. Stay With Me was a hugely successful debut; it won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize. It’s now been translated into 20 languages, and the French translation won the Prix Les Afriques.

Ayobami talks to me through her painstaking editing process, draft by draft; explains how residencies helped her progress; and shares her patient, stoical view of the writing life (with all its ups and downs).

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This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative. Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off one of their four, five, six, or ten-week online writing courses. Visit https://curtisbrowncreative.co.uk to find out more.