Teju Cole on crossing borders

“As far as categories go, I welcome them all. So many of us, wherever you may be in the world, you are both foreign and domestic. It is not that we have to repudiate influences. Where we are is where we are.”

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Writer Teju Cole in conversation with Nicholas Laghlin at the recently-concluded Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago.

"The best of this kind are but shadows"

Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In the last 365 days

I saw the Blue Mountains of Jamaica; saw the oilbird at Asa Wright; met writers like Olive Senior, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Anis Mojgani, Kevin Young, Mervyn Morris, Kendel Hippolyte; watched the sun set over Treasure Beach, Jamaica, while sipping Red Stripe and feeling the warmth of a fire; started reading too many books and finished too few; enjoyed Kendel Hippolyte’s Fault Lines; re-read Selvon’s A Brighter Sun and Vahni Capildeo’s Dark and Unaccustomed Words; inadvertently ended up in Pictures From Paradise; had poems published at Word Riot, Exit Strata, Almost Island, Landscapes Journal, St Petersburg Review and The Drunken Boat among others; had a collaboration with the great Vahni Capildeo featured at Wasafari; returned to the Duchess of Malfi; saw films like Monsieur Lazaar, Absent, and Eyes Wide Open; wrote more things than I can remember; went without sleep for too many days; cooked many strange (but delicious) dishes based on random internet recipes; tried many new types of wine; re-discovered my creepy but charming capital city; made an effort to resume kick-boxing; took 1,976 photographs (sometimes for myself, sometimes for others); went to the mystery tomb at Tobago; got attacked by a vagrant/madman in the street twice (I won each time); made new and lovely, lovely friends; appreciated old friends more; kinda went crazy at the end of Act I of Tristan Und Isolde; adopted Me & All My Friends as my new anthem; embarked on an exciting new project with an incredible genius; realised Carib is not so bad after all (but still prefer Stag and Stella Artois); saw several cool art shows including Steve Ouditt’s ‘Proceeds to Mental Health’ at Medulla Gallery; returned to DH Lawrence; saw a superb production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop; nursed sick family back to health; took zero sick days from work; discovered how others close to me were family after all; walked several miles that cannot be counted; found the best pizza place in Trinidad and Tobago; borrowed 37 books from the National Library; re-discovered the joys of Bridget Jones Diary; launched my book, Trick Vessels, at the Bocas Lit fest; developed a major crush on Bon Iver’s album Bon Iver; wrote another book, started a third; forgot to include so much in this post; worked hard and decided to work even harder; sang too much; danced too little; ended a relationship and considered what it might feel like to love again.

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(PHOTO: Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche reads at the last Calabash literary festival in Jamaica 2012. Photo by Andre Bagoo.)

April showers

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.