To be African is to be modern - this is the central paradox we must embrace.

A novelist must be a psychologist, but a psychologist of a special kind—one who understands the souls of men and women as if he had made them.

"The world is a brutal place. My books reflect that."

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.