Coming to Lagos: An essay from the collection, Of This Our Country

by Helon Habila

To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images.

Yet here, through personal essays from 24 of its writers, a more accurate picture comes into view, and in his essay, Helon Habils recounts the memory of his first visit to Lagos, a rite of passage that exposed him to a part of Nigeria as yet unseen, and which for him, brought the country alive.

Powerful, lyrical and entirely unforgettable, the essays from OF THIS OUR COUNTRY weave together a living portrait of Nigeria, one that is as beautiful as it is complex.

Kindle Edition

Published September 30, 2021

About the author

Helon Habila was born in Nigeria in 1967. He studied literature at the University of Jos and taught at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, before moving to Lagos to work as a journalist. In Lagos he wrote his first novel, Waiting for an Angel, which won the Caine Prize in 2001. Waiting for an Angel has been translated into many languages including Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and French.

In 2002, he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing. His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York. He is a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review, and in 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, NW14: The Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in February 2007.

He currently teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and children.