Virginia Phiri

"Vampires that suck your shadow and confidence."

"This is what is happening in our society and people tend to shy away from talking about it. So as a writer I have found a niche"

"I was once housed, fed and protected by prostitutes when my life was in danger because of my activism during the liberation struggle. Up to that time I had not paid much attention to prostitutes as human beings"

"As writers we do it for the love of the art, but to then get nothing out of it while every street corner is littered with your books, it is heartbreaking and demoralising"

"I don’t care what people say though, the book’s champion declared. It is beautiful writing"

"I am from a background of women who are activists"

"Some were chiefs. My grandmother was a chief’s wife who influenced the chief in good governance. I had an aunt born in Bulawayo who married a foreigner in 1936. She started the burial societies. My paternal men were moneymakers, my maternal men were chiefs. I have always done things in my own way, since primary school"

"Aftrica is an oral culture. The orality of things is selective—we choose what we talk about. Black people in a black community are expected to behave in a certain way. Someone asked me ‘Are you still black"

"I believe in speaking for those who can’t speak for themselves. In the 1970s I was rescued by these women, by sex workers. Those people had a heart. They were women, mothers and sisters. They really felt for people. If a man wrote it, he wouldn’t understand how it worked. These women never have the time to sit and write their experiences. They are too shameful, too embarrassing"