To celebrate Memoir March, we spoke to the authors of this spring’s most exciting memoirs about their research processes, writing roadblocks and biggest fears as they put their personal stories out into the world. Louis Chude-Sokei shares some of the joys and difficulties behind his book,
Floating in a Most Peculiar Way, about negotiating what it means to be African in Jamaica and the United States.
What do you love most about your book?
I love that I was able to fit so much life into such a compact space while still being true to all that I couldn’t keep in. With a memoir, you want to be true to the experiences you are conveying, but at the same time you want your particular vision as a writer to come through. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that those things could still occur after cutting so much out.