LAWRENCE AMAESHI

I have been able to ventilate my deepest cravings to create narratives. Content that reflects reality for Africans in these modern times. I have been able to tell our stories our own way from our mouths, in our street language. Been able to create fictional characters that speak the story of real human lives and circumstances in this part of the world.

Its been everything but easy. Getting a manuscript published by the traditional western industry, to readers who drink heavily from that side of the stream, was a closed door. But these stories I have told today are an alternative reality from Africa; a continent still shrouded by mystery and misinformation. A continent that is rich in creative minds, content and dreams. And more will be told… we are only just at the cusp.

I was born to tell stories. As a child my life was shared into three worlds; reading fiction novels, insatiable curiosity and creating plots in my daydreams. It always bothered me why I always got drawn to details… things other people seemed to ignore. I would stoop by a bush path for hours to observe soldier ants meander along their route, or wait patiently to see if a rabbit would pop out of a hole in the bush or perch on a bough to spy on a man with a sling struggling to hunt birds.

And when in 2009 on my way back from a trip to Abuja, in an airport cab on the third mainland bridge in Lagos, I opened my tablet and began to describe all I saw around me, it began my precipitation as a writer.

Seven years later; after a grueling research that took me through piles of write-ups on the internet, newspaper articles, oral interviews and weeks of sojourn with militants in the belly of the murky and crime infested oil rich Niger delta region in Nigeria, my first narrative Sweet Crude Odyssey was born.

My second crime/fiction novel-Five Brown Envelopes- was released early November 2021. It’s gestation wasn’t less demanding; taking me through the haloed virtual corridors of Stanford University in a Novel Writing Program, through deep and incisive research and even a sojourn in Ikoyi Prisons in Lagos to capture my protagonists plight.

But, I swear, I have enjoyed every second of it.

My name is Amaeshi, Lawrence. I live in Lagos Nigeria. I am married and have three kids. I am an MBA graduate and an alumnus of Stanford University OWC. I have built a career over the last decades in public service in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry

I was born to tell stories.