20-Year-Old Novelist Gets £400,000

Wouldn't you love it if this happened to you?

"I Didn't Know I Was Writing a Novel"
10 January 2005, Guardian-UK

Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first book in seven months while studying for her A-levels. By the time she got her results, she had signed a two-book, £400,000 deal. Anita Sethi meets her.

"Boundaries are forever melting away in the unstable world of The Icarus Girl, 20 year-old Helen Oyeyemi's debut novel. Rooms widen and contract, floors cave in, walls 'tilt sickeningly' as the protagonist, eight-year-old Jessamy, gets carried away by uncontrollable flights of fancy...." {more}

I'd hate to have had anything published that *I* wrote at age 20. I'd have had to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment. I'll be interested to read her novel, though. She is probably much more MATURE and CENTERED than I was at 20. Brava, Ms. Oyeyemi!

You may now go back to your regularly scheduled day, feeling completely inadequate.