Helen Oyeyemi profile

       In The Independent Alexander Nazaryan profiles Helen Oyeyemi, a postmodern literary wizard.
       It's worth it just for the mention that:

In 2007, she enrolled in a creative writing graduate programme at Columbia University, which would have likely led to a pat novel about the Anglo-Nigerian experience, perhaps a premature memoir of the sort pumped out by so many writers with nothing but their own slightly-deviated-from-the-average stories. But she found New York a "confrontational city" that distracted her from writing. And the workshop model of teaching proved "stressful".

       That's a a hell of a stretch for a hunch -- "would have likely led to" ? really ? -- but I'll take my MFA-bashing anywhere and any way I can get it (and, as a longtime New Yorker, Nazaryan has a bit more local street cred than if it were a UK journalist making the claims).

       Oyeyemi's most recent novel is Boy, Snow, Bird; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.