There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.

When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?

I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it's not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that.

What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.

I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.

I think as you grow up and you see things which are around you and you ask questions and you hear the answers, your situation becomes more and more of a puzzle. Now, why is it like this, why are things like this and since writing is one way in which one can ask this questions and try to find these answers, it seems to me a very natural thing to do, especially as it meant stories which I always found moving, almost unbearably necessary.

It is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable.