Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Oyeyemi
Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemiis a British novelist...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1984
home teapots
Home is where your teapots are.
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.
writing play giving
It's true that writing can give new forms to concepts that existed previously with far less clarity, but in terms of the other half of a story's story - the way a story is received and interpreted and used - the audience plays a part in that too.
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.'
agenda believe cultural feminist sort
I think I started writing about identity, and I used to believe that identity is the story. But now I'm not so much subscribed to that. I mean, with 'Mr. Fox,' it has a feminist agenda as well. And so, as I sort of been away from writing about identity, I still feel that kind of tug of roots and, you know, cultural background.
people
I've always felt happy in my own company. It's only when I get around other people that things get sticky.
books character favourite love
I love character and voice, and my favourite books have been the ones in which I've become completely absorbed.
bit mess randomly reputation silent weird
I was a real mess at school. I got a bit of a reputation for being the weird girl: the girl who'd go silent randomly and just kind of write down replies to people's questions in a book.
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.