| Abiola Abrams: One Daring Writer |
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| Features - Features | |
| Written by Felicia Pride | |
| Thursday, 31 January 2008 | |
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BackList: How did you come up with the idea to retell Faust in your debut novel DARE? Abiola Abrams: All of my work has classical elements in it. My parents are Guyanese, and Guyana is a former British colony. So, I grew up with my mother quoting Shakespeare and through my own reading I just developed a love for timeless themes. I am also very influenced by fairytales and other archetypal storytelling. People used to try to discourage me from this path, particularly in my work as a filmmaker, saying that as an African American storyteller certain things may be too high brow. That’s nonsense. We have a tradition from Paul Laurence Dunbar to James Baldwin to Toni Morrison and Ossie Davis of people hiding European classical elements in their work. Please register to read the entire article. Thank you for your support of the BackList.Net |
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Since BackList began, we've made it a point to interview dynamic young writers. Abiola Abrams, who you may know as host of BETJ's The Best Shorts, is an artist to watch. Actually, scratch that. She's an artist who you should continue to watch because homegirl has been doing her thing as a filmmaker and writer for quite some time. She just dropped her first book, DARE, a hip-hop inspired retelling of Faust with a feminist twist. Shorter description: a damn good book. 
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