Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.

I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.