Episode 12: Nudibranch with Irenosen Okojie

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts or Spotify

In this twelfth episode and final episode of series one, Kate and Peter talk to Irenosen Okojie about her latest short story collection, Nudibranch, published by Dialogue Books.

Irenosen reads from her story ‘Mangata’ and we discuss messy characters, black female desire, the importance of writing sex, and waking up very early to write.

‘They are experimental modern day fables, about characters often at the cusp of some sort of change or transition, and transformation is something that I’m really interested in.’

Irenosen on the stories in Nudibranch

Irenosen Okojie MBE is a Nigerian British short story and novel writer working in London. Her first novel, Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award in 2016, and her story Grace Jones won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. Her newest collection, Nudibranch was published by Dialogue Books in 2019 and was longlisted for the 2020 Jhalak Prize.

Podcast music by Andrew Everitt

Show notes: 

Jesus Son by Denis Johnson, Jamaica Kincaid, Leone Ross, June Jordan, Apples and Snakes, Zena Edwards, Kae Tempest, Lemn Sissay, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anonymous Sex

< previous episode

The BLB Podcast is produced and hosted by Kate Ellis and Peter J. Coles

Kate Ellis is a writer, an ex Brick Lane bookseller. She created and runs the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize. Her fiction has been published in the Open Pen Anthology, The Mechanics’ Institute Review, and the London Short Story Prize Anthology. She’s working on her debut short story collection.

Peter J Coles is a writer, father and trainee coder. His fiction has been shortlisted in the Wasafiri Prize, he’s had several stories published, and was a London Writers Awards Awardee. He studied Creative Writing at Birkbeck. 

The BLB Podcast music is written and performed by Andrew Everitt (who’s also a Brick Lane Bookseller). You can find more of Andrew’s music on his bandcamp page.

Books featured on the BLB Podcast:

(listen to the podcast for a discount code on bricklanebookshop.org purchases!)

Browse Short Stories:

(listen to the podcast for a discount code on bricklanebookshop.org purchases!!)