As for developing a writing style'I would say that I tried to copy the pacing of the old movies I loved as a kid.

I'm not at all against white people adopting black children, because we're all human beings who need to give love and be nurtured in safety, but I do think it's better to be adopted by blacks.

I was born to an Arab father and I was born Islamic.

I have much more power and protection than Salman Rushdie, because I'm an American citizen, but yes, I live in terrible fear for my life and for the lives of my children. My whole family has been threatened, my adoptive parents had to sell their house and move out of Washington, D.C. because of death threats caused by my work and activism.

As for feminism, I am a womanist more than I'm a feminist.

I appear topless as a way of holding on to my Nilotic culture, and I also do it to taunt those Africans who are ashamed of our original cultural beliefs.

The Black woman is the most unprotected, unloved woman on earth...she is the only flower on earth...that grows unwatered.