Louis Chude-Sokei was born in Nigeria, spent his early childhood in Jamaica, and moved to Los Angeles after that. “I’m still working out how I’ve taken to America,” he said. “Much of my work is about how I’ve taken to America and whether I’ve taken to it.” And though his subject and inspiration may come from that move to the U.S., Chude-Sokei always knew what work he wanted to do. “There’s a family story about how I was writing books before I knew how to write,” he said, scribbling in the air with imagined pen and paper. “I spent hours just writing.”
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