Just One Thing with Vincent Anioke

The author sharing a meal with a loved one

Vincent Anioke’s September issue story “The Smallness of Asking” describes a young boy’s harrowing trip to a market with his older sister. Here Vincent shares just one thing about the piece:

"I was seven years old the first time I accompanied my mom to Ogbete Market, the same one depicted in this story. There was an overwhelming feeling of revelation. That the world could crackle with such stimuli. That she could inhabit a whole other persona when bargaining with the traders, a larger-than-life defiance so distinct from the gentleness I associated with her. There was rain that day, terror and excitement, a constant energetic struggle to keep up with her pace, and it was interesting watching these details and emotions transform on the page. That’s the beauty of fiction’s alchemy. The afternoon’s resonant mood remains intact but also gains additional dimensions in the hands of new characters: how we strain to grow, to push back on the world’s limits on us, and where grace exists (or doesn’t) when inevitable blunders arise.”