When I came to England it wasn't what it is now, then the black people were very rarely strong. I had a personal shock because England wasn't what I expected it to be... where people lived like Jane Austen.

Being a woman writer, I would be deceiving myself if I said I write completely through the eye of a man. There's nothing bad in it, but that does not make me a feminist writer. I hate that name. The tag is from the Western world - like we are called the Third World.

I work toward the liberation of women, but I'm not feminist. I'm just a woman.

I came to England in 1962 as a very young bride, in my teens, hoping just to stay two years and go back.

The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman, I'd done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn't read it.

I always value my large kitchen because it was better to do everything there, you wash up, you do everything, rather than messing up another room and I pop my typewriter just next to it. So I still write now but I was doing more writing when the children were younger.

I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person... to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as writer and also as oral communicator.