Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. Read full biography of Teju Cole →
The most common thing I find is very brilliant, acute, young people who want to become writers but they are not writing. You know, they really badly... →
Old-school hip hop, i.e., whatever was popular when you were nineteen, is great. Everything since then is intolerable.
Each time I caught sight of geese swooping in formation across the sky, I wondered how our life below might look from their perspective, and imagined... →
For purposes of marketing, writers are designated as poets, novelists, or something else. But writing is about matchmaking, an attempt to marry... →
I probably get a deeper satisfaction of having taken a very good photograph than of having written something very good, a very good story. Maybe... →
Barack Obama is an elegant and literate man with a cosmopolitan sense of the world. He is widely read in philosophy, literature, and history - as... →
Because I'm an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That's what really art history is.... →
Lyrical poetry is not a big part of most people's lives. Twitter now becomes an interesting way of getting cared for language into people's... →
When you are starting out, each great writer gives you specific forms of permission. Michael Ondaatje's work taught me how to be at home in... →
To read Transtromer - the best times are at night, in silence, and alone - is to surrender to the far-fetched. It is to climb out of bed and listen... →
One of the chief characteristics of a mob is its quickness. It is sudden. It pounces.
Religion is close to theatre; much of its power comes from the effects of staging and framing.
Punitive murder by the police and by vigilantes has existed in all societies at some point, and probably still exists in most.
Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian.