You Can Count On Scandinavian Literature For

The Internet Is Really Our Meeting Place. We Have This Amazing Listserv. Every Time I Log Onto It I Feel A Sense Of Pride, Because If You Log On And Say, "oh I Was Just In San Diego And I Was In A Park And I Saw A Lion," The Flurry Of Replies On Average Is Just Like--wow! All These Existential Questions About What It Means To Be An African, And Never Having Seen A Lion At Home, But Having Seen A Lion Here. Everything You Say Turns Into This Real Philosophical Debate--it's Incredible In So Many Ways. And It's An Invigorating Place To Be.

My Books Are Often Shelved Around Those Of Chinua Achebe And Margaret Atwood, Or Chimamanda Adichie And Monica Ali. All Of This Depends, Of Course, On The Bookstore And How Conversant The Shelf Stocker Is With The Alphabet.

Much Of The Image Of The Amazingness Of America Comes From The Movies Into Other Cultures. And It's Much The Same Thing When You Reverse It. Much Of Africa Is Presented Through Poverty, Through Drought And War. [but] You're Not Presenting People, You're Not Presenting Countries, You're Not Presenting Complexity, And So People Can't Care About An Amorphous Mass Called Africa.

You Know, You Can Steel Your Heart Against Any Kind Of Trouble, Any Kind Of Horror. But The Simple Act Of Kindness From A Complete Stranger Will Unstitch You.

I Truly Believe That Writing Is A Continuum--so The Different Genres And Forms Are Simply Stops Along The Same Continuum. Different Ideas That Need To Be Expressed Sometimes Require Different Forms For The Ideas To Float Better.