The Culture Pages – The Queen of Fractured Fairy Tales

Hlen Oyeyemi writes magical, unsettling novels in which nothing remains fixed. She has lived her life that way, too.

- By Helen Shaw. Photograph by Adama Jalloh

The first story the world told about Helen Oyeyemi was that she was a prodigy. A South London girl who had emigrated from Nigeria at the age of 4, she was inward-keeping, sometimes bullied, often desperately sad. As a teen, she endured bouts of clinical depression that she countered with books from the library, episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, eventually, writing. When she was about 15, she read a perfect book. “I stayed home from school,” she told me. “I was ‘off sick’ for three days in bed reading Ali Smith’s Hotel World and just being like, This is allowed? I can’t believe this. I immediately wanted to try it.” Reading was an intense, isolated, even isolating experience. “That’s what made it feel like it was my lifeblood or my own heartbeat,” she said. “It just couldn’t be discussed.”