Quotes from Uzodinma Iweala

War in Africa is hardly a new phenomenon, nor are voices telling its stories of terror and triumph. Yet some of the continent's most devastating conflicts - and the literature born from the experiences of their survivors - have often gone unnoticed in the West.

The first time I ever cast a vote in my 1992 Blessed Sacrament School poll, I voted for Ross Perot because - Ross Perot.

Everybody has an equal right to be on this earth and to be happy on this earth and to achieve on this earth. That's kind of the way that I would like to try and go about living.

Our racial past and future is something that we Americans must address.

I think the more complex your idea of who someone is or who a particular group is, the less able you are to separate 'we' and 'outside' or 'us and them.' I think that that's something that we really, really need to pay attention to.

Kidnapping causes a long-term rupture in the psyche of those kidnapped and of those who wait for their return. It doesn't end.

'Talking Peace' is one of the few books from childhood that I still keep prominently displayed on my bookshelf.

Sometimes you just wanna go out, see your action movie, be done with it, come home. You know, and, like, you see 'The Matrix' or whatever, you see whatever film it is, and you're like, 'Oh cool,' whatever.

Memoir is a difficult literary form to pull off when dealing with discrete and poignant moments in a life, even harder when seeking to narrate over 80 years of existence.

There are skills you pick up on in a clinical environment in terms of how to ask questions, what to look for, how to listen that serve one well when trying to write.

When you relate to a disease, you're afraid. When you relate to a person, there is compassion. You see someone that is like you, that could be like you. You can see yourself in that same situation.

Reading 'Search Sweet Country' is like reading a dream, and indeed, at times, it feels like the magical landscapes of writers like the Nigerian Ben Okri or the Mozambican Mia Couto.

Lagos is a fascinatingly infuriating place that its residents love - and love to hate. Licence plates on cars here proudly display the state motto, 'Centre of Excellence,' in what often seems a sarcastic swipe at the place we live in.

Around the world, our cities are not the idealised open, accessible, and cosmopolitan spaces of our dreams. More often than not, they are sectioned and controlled purviews of the radically wealthy, surrounded by clusters of have-nots.

I think the fact that we don't really... that the world really doesn't acknowledge how bad and how detrimental colonialism was; that people don't really try to explore it, you know, in popular media and news articles; that... that it's just kind of glossed over as this thing.

The images that we see of Africa are so... that are so engrained in our minds are of this place that is terrible - like hell on earth. And that doesn't acknowledge the positive things - the many, many, many positive things - that people are doing.

It's true that people will take advantage of you in Nigeria, but this happens everywhere in the world.

I think, all too often, this society has too monolithic a definition of what a black American is.

D.C. is in my blood, my diction, my sensibility and style. I am, though, in love with a city that cannot fully love me back.

I hear a good song and I start thinking, 'Oh shoot. You know there's a story that can be told to this,' and whatnot.

I find the sort of unwitting European American outsider who wants to come to Africa to help is a very problematic construction. It's problematic because you don't want to tell people don't aid, don't help, when people feel a need to.

European authors often write books about the rest of the world that profess a vision of shared humanity but fall far short, casting the other as exotic or dangerous.

I don't think there is enough understanding of how diverse black America actually is.

Anybody who tells you they're not scared when starting a new book project is a very good liar.