Imagine This by Sade Adeniran

Hey Everyone!

I had the wonderful pleasure of reading Imagine This, the debut novel by Sade Adeniran. If you’ve been keeping track with my blog, you will all know how incredible I think it is. It is one of the best novels I’ve ever read and I encourage you all to read it.

What? Haven’t heard of it? Preposterous! But never fear! You can read the review I did of the novel for The American Chronicle by clicking here:

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=31450

The book is beautiful, gorgeous, funny, heart breaking, incredible…you see where I’m going with this?

I have the wonderful pleasure of having Sade stop by my blog today and I’m honored to have her here for a little interview about her amazing novel.

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JAMIESON: Thanks very much for dropping by! How about we start with how you came to writing. Did you always want to be a writer?

SADE: Hi there, before I go into interview mode can I just say this is great, my first virtual interview. So as I’m tapping away at my keyboard I imagine you’re sitting on the other side of the world in a nice blue jumper and fluffy slippers, with a cup of tea and biscuits. Okay on to serious stuff, I never thought I wanted to be a writer, but writing has always been my way of communicating. In real life, I’m shy and can never manage to say what I’m thinking because I always think it doesn’t come out right, so instead I write. You can go back to words on a page and make them harsher or softer. You can’t do that in a conversation, when I say something, I’m always putting my foot in it.

JAMIESON: When did you realize that you wanted to write for a living? What were you writing at the time?

SADE: I can’t say I had an epiphany, I guess when enough people compliment you on your work you start to think hmmm, maybe I can do this. Even then, it takes tremendous courage and tenacity to move forward. My first commercial piece of work was a Radio Play, which was my final year project at University. I sent it into the BBC and it got rejected. I sent it in again a couple of months later for a competition and it was commissioned. I asked the Commissioning Editor why something that was rejected as not up to standard, is suddenly on a shortlist of plays to be produced. I’ll always remember her response, ‘just because one person rejects it, it doesn’t mean it’s not good, keep sending out your work until you find a champion.’ So now of course I think everything I write is great even though I’m still getting the rejections

JAMIESON: Now, I'm dying to know about your new book! What's it called? (Just in case someone missed it before LOL)

SADE: It’s called Imagine This and it’s actually my first novel.

JAMIESON: What is it about? I know we can read the summary on the back of the book or online; but I always love to hear about the book from the author themselves.

SADE: Imagine This is a poignant story of one girl’s journey from childhood to adulthood, it conveys the impact on a young child of her removal from a familiar world to one filled with juju, taboos, witchdoctors, rituals and all too many relatives. Ultimately it’s about the human instinct for survival against the odds. This is captured in a proverb in the book, it goes ‘The spirit that keeps one going when one has no choice of what to do, must not be mistaken for valour.’

JAMIESON: What inspired you to write it? Even though it's a novel, is there a lot of fact woven into it? Most authors who write fiction tend to put a lot of themselves into their work.

SADE: I started writing Imagine This back in 1998; I’d been made redundant from my job as a Marketing Executive for a Telecoms company. As a result, I was full of angst and hated my ex-boss. So I started to write a story about how an employee exacts revenge on her iniquitous employer. I had my scenes mapped out; the big finale was going to be Boss Man experiencing a misfortune of unimaginable proportions. Lame huh! However, as soon as I put pen to paper, the plot that I’d meticulously mapped out disappeared as I started to build Lola’s back-story. One of the reasons for this was that her history was more intriguing than her revenge quest. The other thing that happened at the time was that I got a call from someone I went to school with and I couldn’t remember who he was. After I dropped the phone I realised that over the years, I’d excised most of my childhood memories. Probably because, what I remembered most about growing up was the feeling of helplessness and not having a voice in determining my own fate. The same feeling I got when I was made redundant. From this introspection, the foundation of Imagine This was thus born.

People who have read it keep saying it seems so real it must be auto-biographical or have elements of me in there. It’s not an autobiography or my childhood memoirs, but there is an element of me in the story. Like many British Nigerians, I was sent back to Nigeria to live. I spent my formative years in Idogun, and had to make do without the basic necessities I was used to. So although Imagine This is based on my experience of growing up in Idogun, it is truly Lola’s story.

JAMIESON: Where can readers find you on the net? Do you have a web site or a blog?

SADE: Yes I have a website and a blog. The website is www.ImagineThisTheNovel.com, I’m still being precious about my blog so I’m not giving out the URL yet. I will once I’m happy about my random thoughts, I read it the other day and thought I sounded bitter and frustrated and I wouldn’t want to unleash that on anyone.

JAMIESON: It’s been such a pleasure having you stop by! Thanks so much for visiting!

SADE: Thank you for having me, it’s been a blast.

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So now that you've read all about IMAGINE THIS and the incredible Sade I know for sure that you will want to buy a copy. You can do so by clicking on this link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Imagine-This-Sade-Adeniran/dp/0955545307/ref=sr_1_3/203-7962369-6090343?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187100832&sr=1-3

It really is an incredible novel by an even more incredible author.