Writers brought up in Africa have many advantages - being at the center of a modern battlefield; part of a society in rapid, dramatic change. But in a long run it can also be a handicap: to wake up every morning with one's eyes on a fresh evidence of inhumanity; to be reminded twenty times a day of injustice, and always the same brand of it, can be limiting.

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia.

Bad luck for both of us, we are both boulder-pushers.

Nicknames are potent ways of cutting people down to size.

For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his intelligence and sympathy, claiming her emotionally; then, when she began to claim in return, running away. And the better a woman was, the sooner he would begin to run. I knew this with my intuition, and yet I sat there in my dark room, looking at the hazed wet brilliance of the purple London night sky, longing with my whole being.

Literature is analysis after the event.