It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.

People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.

If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like.

Colonial rule means that power, initiative is taken away from you by somebody else who makes your decisions. If that goes on long enough, beyond one generation, then the habit of self-rule is forgotten. People are no longer able to realize what it means. To be dependant for a hundred years! And suddenly when this thing ends there is nobody who actually knows how to set about running the country.

In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.

When I'm writing, I really want to satisfy myself. I've got a story that I am working on and struggling with, and I want to tell it the most effective way I can. That's really what I struggle with. And the thought of who may be reading it may be there somewhere in the back of my mind - I'll never say it's not there because I don't know - but it's not really what I'm thinking about.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.