"Learning from history allows us to not only learn about a country’s complexities and heritage but also solidifies our identity about ourselves as a people"

"You have people who are affluent and people who are poor. Who decides how the scales are weighed?"

"I am tired of this portrayal of African women as being timid, oppressed creatures"

"writing is a space where I can be bold and brazen, uncensored even"

"my early reading was devoid of Black writers and African literature as a whole"

"Yes, writing fiction is risky but then, as they say in finance, the higher the risk, the higher the return"

"A lot of religious people are like that. They have zero empathy and a lot more judgement."

"I enjoy writing all my characters, otherwise they would not make it into my books"

"I believe books should transport you to places, whether real or imagined"

"I knew a lot about European history, but I couldn’t tell you anything substantial about African history"

"A country needs to be judged by the living standards of its poorest people and not the few elite."

"I hate reading a book and not being able to locate myself."

"I think Africa has a wealth of talent which remains largely unknown, never mind celebrated"

"We never go deep into dealing with our wounds. We carry things forward, from one generation to the next"

"write for love before you consider writing for money"

"I like to show that as much as we like to divide ourselves with borders, we’re more related than we think"

"Wealth comes with its own problems and challenges"

"Life is about taking chances and believing in yourself"

"Writing as a career is not financially lucrative for most writers"

"life has light moments and dark moments. It’s not just a canvas painted with one brush, and so I just wanted to bring all that together to show the different layers, the happy and sad moments"

"Most of the books I read reinforce the way I think and view things"

"For me, writing is like being an actress, in a way, because I get into the role, to make it believable. Otherwise you won’t be able to connect and relate to it"

"I think there is a tendency of viewing happiness as a destination and that you can exist in that state forever, I dont buy that."

"The genesis of current problems is rooted in the past"

"There's only one secret to being a successful hairdresser and I've never withheld it from anyone. Your client should leave the salon feeling like a white woman."

"Such a strange and haunting debut! Attia's spellbinding sentences and wonderful characters draw you into a story unlike any other. This is an author to watch"

"The thing is, every time I go back, I feel more and more like a stranger. The lingo's changed, the bearer notes have more zeros, the whole vibe, the way people do things is completely different."

"They think we come from the jungle. They think we have kangaroo courts. They will say, 'How can you practice law here when you couldn't even preserve the rule of law in your own country?'"

"But if there's one thing I've learnt in the last few years, it's that everyone needs a story. That's all our lives amount to, nothing but stories that we hope will live on after we are gone."

"I have told this to everyone who's ever asked me and what they all want to know is how d'you make someone feel like a white woman? The answer is simple, Whiteness is a state of mind."

"The Magistrate mapped the city through the music he listened to, each song a landmark in the labyrinth of his mind."

"Something about the elderly altered the character of a place, civilized it, creating a bridge between past and present, a sense of continuity across generations."

"Men don’t take rejection so well. It’s like they’re raised expecting that they can have whatever they want."

"I can only say that friendship should rise above man-made laws, which tend to be capricious by their very nature."

"The Maestro often wondered if he was retreating into madness or finding solace in the silence of his books."

"To be dispensable is a woman's worst nightmare and I was beginning to live it."

"It’s difficult to stop loving someone, even when they have done something that you once thought unforgivable. There isn’t an on off switch for love."

"There's way hipper, trendier shit happening in spaces unsafe for lily-white skinned people's privilege."

"As a black woman, black people, you’re not supposed to crumble."

"We all know what a coconut is, don’t we? It’s a person who is “black on the outside” but “white on the inside."

"All my work as a writer has to do specifically with the black condition, the black woman’s condition and theorising about and speaking to black liberation; black revolution."

"The past, present, and future, all wrapped into one."

"I must be in touch with the earth. I can never mistake the source of inspiration and energy to be gender, it is something we all share. It is true, however, that one best writes on themes, feelings, and sentiments one is more closely connected with. In this regard I like to think that I am writing. I am a woman. I am writing."

"Fumbatha could never be the beginning or end of all her yearning."

"She cried, and the women sang her back to sleep, willing a silence onto her. She defied them with her tiny speech-seeking voice and cried all day and all night until her mother fell asleep."

"I am against silence"

"I would not write if I weren’t in search of beauty, if I was doing it only to advance a cause. I care deeply about my subjects, but I want to be consumed by figures of beauty, by story and character. It must be about perfection. Like a basket-maker or a weaver or a hair-plaiter, you are aware of what you are trying to accomplish from the first sentence"

"The books I write try to undo the silent posture African women have endured over so many decades"

"I doubt that the natives can listen to an old woman like her. What can she tell them? This society has no respect for women, whom they treat like children. A woman has nothing to say in the life of the natives. Nothing at all."