I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.

I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn't that they are inaccurate, but that they're incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn't that it's inaccurate, it's that it's incomplete.

When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.

I've written fiction for as long as I can remember; it's always been my preferred form of play.

When I'm working, I'm so narrowly focused on sound, language, rhythm, flow, that I rarely feel the emotion of the text. It's only after - long after - I've finished a piece that I can experience in any way its emotional charge.

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

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