The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.

Sight is subjective. We learned that in class.

I live in Rome and five minutes from my flat is a church where you can walk in and see this beautiful Caravaggio. Just the way this man uses dark paint: dark to create dark to create dark, the layering of the darkness in his work. I just race home: I want to create!

I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.

Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide.

As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.

The big ideas always come in flashes. I don't really craft stories that much. I genuinely don't know where these people come from and I've often wondered if writing is just a socially acceptable form of madness.