"Writers are not protected from discrimination. When I worked as an accountant I dealt with discrimination and I'm still dealing with it now. It's funny, looking back from my first writing class, it feels like I've been on one long audition, standing before an audience who is yelling, What have you got? Go on, tell us an African story! - Sefi Atta"

Ike Anya speaks with Sefi Atta on her recently published first book - Everything Good Will Come

Congratulations on Everything Good Will Come. I thoroughly enjoyed it - it was so evocative of my memories of growing up in Lagos - the Ikoyi waterfront, the sights and smells of Sandgrouse Market, the Owambe parties. I am particularly excited that the stories of my generation of Nigerians are being told, in your work and that of Chimamanda Adichie, Helon Habila, Ike Oguine and Chris Abani. Was recording this slice of existence a conscious consideration for you? I suppose in a roundabout way I'm asking - Why did you write Everything Good Will Come?

Thanks very much. Compulsion is the answer to your question. It began with an image of the Lagos lagoon, a wooden fence and these two girls, Enitan and Sheri, on either side. I had a strong sense of their spirits and nothing else, but I couldn't get the image out of my mind. Then I had to turn it into a story, moving to the next image and then the next. I consciously did not hold back as I wrote and ended up with this very personal chronicle of post-independent Nigeria.

Following on from that, I would have to ask, why write at all? You are a qualified accountant, that is not a profession usually associated with such "ethereal" practices as writing. How did you make that journey from the "dry" world of balances and figures and ledgers to this wispy writing business?

My stories begin with daydreams. As an accountant, I often daydreamed because my work was so dry. I became a functioning daydreamer. No joke, because my mind has to wander and play in order to create and it is hard to justify sitting around looking like I'm doing absolutely nothing. These days, I can actually carry on conversations and daydream at the same time. Also, being an auditor is like being part nosy parker and part tell tale tit. That basically summarizes my writing life. I know there is an accounting principle or something called the true and fair view, but it would be bordering on pretentious to say that is what I'm trying to achieve when I write. I'm not sure what I would be writing about if I didn't have a regular job for years. I took my first writing class while I was working as an accountant in New York. I always say I drifted into the class, but I may have been looking for a creative outlet. I'd just sat my professional exams after moving to America and having a baby. Anyway, I couldn't stop writing after that and it made sense because I'd always been fascinated by creative people, in awe of them. Sometimes, I'm an obsequious mess when I meet artists I admire. Some of my childhood memories are ethereal because of my association with artists. My mother's sister Shade Thomas was a fashion designer. I still remember the smell of her boutique and her gold embroidered caftans, and I would get so excited whenever we visited Ben Enwonwu at his house by the Lagos lagoon with all his paintings and sculptors. He was my parents' friend and to me he was like a great genie, with his beard and his laugh. I also remember going with my mother to a studio where Buraimoh worked and he had all these colorful beaded mosaics. The place was a magical grotto. I pay tribute to these childhood memories in the novel.

I love the title of your book "Everything Good Will Come" I'm aware that was not your original title. How did you come by this gem of a title? I know, it's derived from the book, but what made you pick that particular phrase, laden as it is with affirmation, which somehow feels very Nigerian.

The title was my editor's idea. It comes from a phrase in the novel. Perhaps it sounds Nigerian because our names translate to phrases. Who knows? It feels a little foreign on my tongue: Everything Good Will Come… It had better bring me good fortune.

Everything Good Will Come tells an intriguing story, of two Nigerian girls and their growing up and the different choices that they make, or that are thrust upon them. In the course of the book, you highlight some of the contradictions inherent in contemporary Nigerian society, for instance with morality and sexuality - Sheri for all her traditionalism is basically a kept woman, and then you have the men - pillars of society (and its institutions) with their mistresses and infidelities and half-hidden second families -which some would argue are still symptoms of a society caught between two cultures. Would you agree?

I think we choose to live between two cultures

, traditional and western, and people get caught in the conflicts that arise. I also think that what we call traditionalism is really just patriarchy. This is not to suggest that western cultures are more progressive. Here in Mississippi where I live, conservatism is another name for patriarchy, perhaps because it's harder to defend patriarchy. I would say my novel is narrated by a modern Nigerian woman who is in conflict with her patriarchal culture. She is an intimate narrator though, almost as if she is taking your hand and saying, Come and see.

So, sort of going back to the earlier question - did you set out to make a socio-political statement, to challenge some of these issues in writing the book? And have you braced yourself for the backlash that is likely to come if and when you publish in Nigeria?

No, I didn't set out to do anything but follow the story to its end. I didn't even want to expose any issues. I just had to. As for potential backlashes, I am argumentative. At the same time, I have a tendency to shy away from angry conflicts and I cannot bear malice, but I have a strong will. Whatever the reaction, I will move on to my next story. Writers don't set out to create perfect works, or works that please everyone. Alice Walker said, Be nobody's darling and I agree with her. So far, I've had positive reviews from men and women. A couple of writers I respect have commented on how I translated Yoruba expressions to English. I understand their irritation, but for me, I could either translate or use a glossary.

Reading your book, in the evocation of waterfront Lagos, I sensed echoes of the Deep South of the United States, in your description of the tang and marshy smells of the lagoon front. You of course, reside in Mississippi. Are there parallels or have I just imagined them?

I live in a regular suburban subdivision. There are no marshes around me and Meridian is a landlocked city as mall-erized as most of America. Most days I'm too busy shuttling my daughter to school and after-school activities to notice the views. I'm aware of the red soil and creeks with names like Sowashee and Hobolochitto, but then sometimes I imagine the horrors that Native Americans and Africans went through and then the landscape can appear sinister. Last year, I met an artist who asked if I knew the real Mississippi. I had to confess I knew it only from the highway, driving to New Orleans or to Atlanta. She offered to take me to Oxford and other places of character, the back roads and all. I was tempted because Mississippi has such a rich literary history, but then I became afraid. She was an elderly white woman and I thought, what if we end up in the wrong place and I get shot for trespassing? People in Mississippi use guns. The Pearl High school and Lockheed Martin plant shootings took place here, and I'm not just talking about headline stories like that. I've heard enough personal stories of fatal shootings in the community where I live. In Lagos, only the police, the military, or armed robbers mess with guns to that extent. But, like Lagos, Mississippi is much more than its negative headline stories.

Which brings me to my next question - Enitan, your heroine is sent to the UK to boarding school and then university and there she encounters the experience of being an outsider, of being different - of having to explain why she washed her hair only to grease it up again immediately after- does this and indeed the whole book draw from your experience? In other words how much of you is in Enitan? And is there a real-life Sheri?

Every Nigerian knows a Sheri. Ostensibly, she possesses power because of her beauty, "bottom power", as we call it at home, but the reality is that she is an objectified woman, "a piece of ass", and she suffers the worst consequence for this: rape. Enitan has intellectual power, which she often doesn't exercise. Although I did not intend it, the prison scene is in a sense a metaphor for the state of her mind. I can relate to that, because in my own life I don't always express my views verbally. In public, I can become tongue-tied or I clam up. I did go to a boarding school in Nigeria when I was 10. Queen's College. I loved it. I was the class playwright. Then from age 14 to 18, I was in a boarding school in Somerset, England. Millfield School. That was a major culture shock. Then I attended Birmingham University. After I graduated, I lived in Nigeria for a couple of years. I returned to England in 1988 and I've lived overseas ever since. I moved to the United States in 1994 so I've spent about a third of my life in Nigeria, a third in England and a third in America. Someday, I intend to write a novel based outside Nigeria. I've been in the most unlikely places, especially after I married a Nigerian doctor. We moved from Wigan in England, to Hackensack in New Jersey to Meridian in Mississippi. It's like being in a seriously under-funded diplomatic service without the immunity. But no, Enitan is not me. She is more vocal, more daring. Also, her family history couldn't be more different from mine. My father was the son of a traditional ruler. He worked for the government and he died when I was eight, just after the Biafran war. My mother raised five children on her own. In her spare time, she played golf. She was stylish and fabulous and took us travelling. But I would also say she is a proud Yoruba woman who in some ways believes in "traditionalism", even though she might disagree. For her, women must fulfill their duties as wives and mothers, no excuses. For me, this was a source of conflict. It still is. My in-laws are not like Enitan's in-laws though. My husband is a Ransome-Kuti and they have a strong tradition of activism in their family. From their grandmother, to Fela, to Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, they have fought against oppression.