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.

Men blackmailing you as a woman leads you to trivialise sex and say 'it's not important, what is important is myself as a person, no one owns me because of sex.'

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.

But who made the law that we should not hope in our daughters? We women subscribe to that law more than anyone. Until we change all this, it is still a man's world, which women will always help to build.

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.

As soon as I finish a book, I sell the paperback rights to different publishers and that's where I recoup my money.

I like to be called a Nigerian rather than somebody from the Third World or the developing or whatever.