Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemiis a British novelist...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1984
crush mean men
Because he says he can't stand you and you act like you can't stand him, and whenever a man and a woman behave like that toward each other, it usually means something's going on.
looks dangerous
Would that be dangerous, to not look while being looked at?
once-upon-a-time meetings ideals
That's the ideal meeting...once upon a time, only once, unexpectedly, then never again.
catholic language speak
The language of [Catholic] mysticism - its repeated attempts to lay consciousness itself bare and speak all the intensely opposing yet interconnected parts of it that cannot be spoken.
absolutely cause feelings leave monsters people time travel
The way that people feel changes everything. Feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And to leave ourselves, to leave our bodies. I would be that kind of psychologist who says, 'You're absolutely right - there are monsters under the bed.'
books character favourite love
I love character and voice, and my favourite books have been the ones in which I've become completely absorbed.
agent basically came literary next pages sending telling written
The way 'The Icarus Girl' came about was by me just basically bragging it with a literary agent and telling him I'd written 150 pages when I'd only written 20. And I think it was when the agent e-mailed me back right the very next day after sending him the 20 pages and asking to see the other 130.
aspects basic contain difference dying men tells thinks truths various women
I don't feel there's a difference between the real world and the fairy-tale world. They contain psychological truths and, I guess, projections of what the culture that tells them thinks about various things: men, women, aging, dying - the most basic aspects of being human.
aware cities far foot form greedy hello looking places returning streets tend until
I'm greedy about cities - I like to form my impressions of them on my own, and on foot as far as possible, looking and listening, having conversations with bridges and streets and riverbanks, conversations I tend not to be aware of until a little later, when I find myself returning to those places to say hello again, even if only in memory.
books cross lots parts remember rewrite sad upset women
I remember that I used to get lots of books from the library, and 'Little Women' was one of them. And I used to just cross out the parts of it that really upset me because it's such a sad book in so many ways. I'd cross out the parts that upset me, and I would rewrite new endings.
despise gateway happened maybe opens
I don't despise 'Don Quixote,' but it is a book I don't... get. I'll have to come back it. Maybe there'll be a gateway story that opens it up for me; that happened for me with 'Paradise Lost' and the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.
allowed book change crying death given green loved remember staring trying women words
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; 'What Katy Did;' and 'Peter Pan.'
aware troubled
The more forcibly I'm made aware of the fact that I'll never be the kind of storyteller I most admire, the less I'll be troubled by that. I'll probably just become more myself.
recommend telling wearing whilst
I can recommend wearing blue mascara whilst writing. I'm telling you, it really adds something.