“What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.”

Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.

Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices

If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.

Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised – so it’s no longer “in the closet,” as it were. It’s part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature.

There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.

They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.

It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.

People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.

What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.

In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship – between languages and communities – because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.

I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.

How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?

We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.

And even in terms of justice, law codes, the legal system. A person who does not know English in Africa is excluded from that system because he can only operate through acts of translation.

Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!

I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.

So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

What’s the saddest word in the English language? Almost. Almost is never enough.

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

My English is very bad.

Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!

I speak two languages, Body and English.