Interviewed at The Quarterly Conversation

Scott Esposito of The Quarterly Conversation interviewed me a few weeks ago about my book A Basket of Leaves, and I’m delighted to see that the interview has just been published.

Here’s an excerpt, with a plug for one of my favorites among the books I wrote about in A Basket of Leaves:

Ben Okri is best known for The Famished Road, but the book I think readers should start with, and the one I discuss in my book, is his collection of stories Stars of the New Curfew. The title story is about a young man who goes to work selling patent medicines in Lagos. He is profiting from the misery of the poor, but it’s worse than that: his medicines actually make certain ailments worse. He’s a convincing salesman, and he falls into the trap of believing his own pitch. He begins taking his own drugs to keep up his energy, but they give him nightmarish visions. It’s a scary descent into the abyss that ends up blurring the boundaries of reality.