When did the issue of climate change get personal for you? 

Toyin: I took a trip back to the village where I did my youth service in the Okpara Inland in the Niger Delta, 10 years after and I found the village, frozen in time, with the school l served in, now derelict with broken walls. 

There is a strong presence of nostalgia in your story. Could this sense of nostalgia be of loss or hope? 

Toyin: It’s a yearning for what cannot be replaced and a hope for what is still salvageable.

What inspired your story for The Green We Left Behind nonfiction anthology? 

Toyin: Walking back in space and time  through my road trips to cities and villages in Nigeria

As an artist, how are you able to merge beauty in language with such a dire theme on climate change? 

Toyin: I am a poet. Poets take the beauty from ashes.

As you release your story to the world, what is your wish or hope for the story?

Toyin: I hope to inspire someone to do something in their private space. For example, don’t throw trash out of your car window. They end up clogging the drains, contributing to flooding. Take those empty bottles home and dispose of them properly.

Aside from writing, how else do you intend to contribute towards curbing climate change?

Toyin: I am reducing my own carbon footprint. I am planting trees around me. I also try to avoid single use plastic. I will also do more writing.

Biography

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel is a Nigerian writer and poet. She has worked as a literary critic for The Guardian, Post Express and The Daily Times. She writes in both English and in German.