I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.

As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.

The summer I finished my first novel 'Ghana Must Go,' I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.

The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.

As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.

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.