For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.

A very close friend of mine keeps reminding me that since about the age of 50, I've been saying, 'I'm finished. I haven't got another one in me.' But somehow you do.

Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.

What I quickly discovered is that our so-called new South Africa has as much material for a story-teller as the old one. The landscape hasn't really changed. Who is in power now is different to who was in power then, but the squatter camps grow like cancer, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

Night-time is when I brainstorm; last thing, when the family's asleep and I'm alone, I think about the next day's writing and plan a strategy for my assault on the blank page.

Every boy needs a role model that he can be proud of and talk about to the other kids in the playground.

I've always sensed for myself an obligation to bear witness to my time.