The British-Ghanaian author on having his mind blown by Malorie Blackman as a child, the allure of John Williams’s Stoner and why Zadie Smith made him want to write
My earliest reading memory
Reading Biff and Chip in my first couple of years of primary school. I loved those books and was always desperate for the next one.
My favourite book growing up
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. Malorie was my local author – I grew up in Lewisham, south-east London, and she did too – it blew my mind, at 10 or 11, to have someone living near me who was writing fiction in which I could recognise some version of myself.
