Africa is not a fun place, you know. A fun place is somewhere that lifts the spirits, that cossets the senses. I don't think that can be said of the Africa I traveled in.
If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.
I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.
Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.
I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
