The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.
When a man who is drinking neat gin starts talking about his mother he is past all argument.
African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
I live with one foot in the sand and one in the snow. There's European egocentricity, and the African opposite. I normally say that my African experience has made me a better European.
The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.
The 'Cheetah Generation' refers to the new and angry generation of young African graduates and professionals, who look at African issues and problems from a totally different and unique perspective.
Americans think African writers will write about the exotic, about wildlife, poverty, maybe AIDS. They come to Africa and African books with certain expectations.
There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.
Shakespeare is in many ways an African writer and 'Hamlet' would be seen as a very accurate historical saga about an African kingdom.
With domestic adoption, you get a form, you fill it out, and there are these boxes: African-American, African-American and Hispanic, and you check the boxes that you're comfortable with. Race is completely open in that regard.
Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for a...
We don't intend to always keep this necessarily African oriented. Originally I had hoped to have African American Indian of this area, and the Appalachian of this area, but at the same time, just as we have the Haitian room, we will always have room ...
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
I had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it 'The Men' and call it 'The Women' and show different faces of these two people.
Captain of Louisa: By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William II, I pronounce you man and wife - Proceed with the execution.
Charlie Allnut: Well I ain't sorry for you no more, ya crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid!
Rose Sayer: [after travelling through the rapids] Now that I've had a taste of it I don't wonder why you love boating.
For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.
You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'
