I'm more trying to connect; I'm more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.

I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened - particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control. They want to be the ones telling people: "This is what we have done in history" but when people begin to say, "No this is what we have done in history" it's a different thing.

Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.

The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission. Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices

We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.

For me, being in prison writing in an African language was a way of saying: "Even if you put me in prison, I will keep on writing in the language which made you put me in prison."

We can appreciate each other's languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.