“Never Look an American in The Eye”

Author, essayist and speaker Okey Ndibe, is currently on a tour of Nigeria, promoting his memoir, “Never Look an American in The Eye” and his latest novel “Foreign Gods Inc.”, which has just been re-issued by Book Craft. At a recent reading and signing session, held at Goethe Institute in Lagos, he spoke with Adefoyeke Ajao about his most recent work.

On looking Americans in the eye…

Before I went to America in 1988, an uncle of mine had told me not to look Americans in the eye. He suggested that Americans would shoot you if you looked them in the eye and so, I took his advice to heart. For my first two weeks in America, I scrupulously avoided looking people in the eye, until one day – I think on the 13th day of my arrival in America – I was…