I admire Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Strout, D. O. Fagunwa, Sefi Atta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Colm Toibin and Junot Diaz. It's a long list that keeps growing.

I wanted to explore expectations we have of people - what a woman should be, what a man should be. And if they don't meet our own interpretation of who they should be because of their gender, their background, their ethnic group, we then come to conclusions about them that are not accurate.

I'd always been interested in Nigeria's past.

In 2010, I was working in a bank in Lagos. It was a crazy job with long working hours. I had to leave for the office by 5:30 A.M., and sometimes I wouldn't be back until midnight.

No, but women are saying, and they say, are you crazy? But because they've had children since they were 20 years old. I haven't. So I had a child when I was 43, and now he's really out with his friends.

As with any mother, all I wish is for my boys to have the peaceful family life they deserve.

Learning of my father's passing at age 55 not only shattered the world, far from home, that had become my reality, but catapulted my childhood and relationship with family - which had felt like another lifetime - into the present.

My family means everything to me and the birth of our daughter has enabled me to have more focus on my career and every time I compete, I dedicate my success to them.