There is no greater agony than one’s failure to tell an untold story that lies within one. Mr. Kolapo Akinola, popularly known online as TOKS, is about to release his debut novel titled: The Bachelor’s Ride. The title and storyline of this novel are based on his personal experience as a bachelor and an adventurer across Africa and Europe.
“I wanted to write a book that is based on my life experiences. Initially, the objective was to just write a memo like an autobiography where I’ll write my own story and still introduce some fictional characters so that it becomes a novel, not a normal autobiography,” said Kolapo, a data scientist and a programmer in a global consulting firm in London.
For Kolapo Akinola, writing is a hobby he combines with his busy schedule at work. So he writes at odd times like when he is on the airplane or train going to work, and in the evenings before bedtime.
He grew up in Nigeria at his hometown, Ilaro in Ogun State before moving to Lagos from where he left for the UK. He studied economics and did his master’s in Operational research at the University of Edinburgh.
Kolapo has written for a few major blogs in Nigeria with the name TOKS. His interest in writing started 10 years ago. After his journey to Edinburgh, he wanted to tell stories on the challenges of Nigerians from low-class families who travel outside the country to study without the aid of scholarships. Along the line, he decided to change the storyline after his personal encounter with a lady at the airport.
“Three years ago,” he said, “I met a stranger at the Murtala Mohammed Airport and this woman inspired the full story of this book. All through my life as a traveller, I have never seen a lady who caught my attention so strikingly that I believed in love at first sight. I was flying from Lagos to London when I met her. When I got back to London, I learned she was a celebrity. Let me not tell you much about this because it is all written in the first chapter of my upcoming novel, The Bachelor’s Ride.
Akinola said because he had had a lot of experiences in dating and relationships and read a lot of books on romance; he hasn’t seen any book that spoke about his own peculiar story. So that ignited his decision to write his own novel.
He said: “My book is about the story of a young man in his late thirties who was truly in search of love. It’s a story of someone who believes in true love and is crazy about it. I’m trying to redefine the narrative that as a man, you can be successful and rich but still not have love. And it took me almost two and a half years to finish this book.”
Akinola believes love can’t be defined but expressed, and that love finds you. “When you experience love then you know you’ve found love. It’s unique. It’s something that can’t be defined. You just feel it and know it’s real. Love is unconditional without any requirements, the age is irreverent, the colour is irrelevant, and the tribe is irrelevant. When you meet someone that completes you, you know you’ve found love and you don’t necessarily have to be in the same social class,” he said.
This novel promises to be intriguing as it narrates the experiences and complications of a man in search of love and how he navigates through all of them. It also betrays the Nigerian culture and tradition, so the audience from any part of the world will get to know more about the Nigerian culture and what it means to grow up in a typical African home.
The setting of the novel covers Lagos, London, and Edinburgh, with characters from US, Dublin, Ghana, Dubai and South Africa.
The book will be out late November/December, and 9 reviews have been done on the manuscript in places like Harvard Business School and by literacy professionals in New York. The book was edited by one of the leading bestseller editors in New York, Kelvin Anderson, and with leading authors in the UK.
