So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

The thing that comes most frequently to me on yoga retreats is excruciating pain in my hips.

As a young woman, I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.

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

I wouldn't mind my book being called an African novel if it didn't invite lazy readings.

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.

So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.