"Mogadishu the beautiful - your white-turbaned mosques, baskets of anchovies as bright as mercury, jazz and shuffling …"

"It is the kind of place where human skeletons might sink into the soil undisturbed and unmourned."

"In her orchard the trees had been born from deaths; they marked and grew from the remains of the children that passed…"

"In the centre of the city where the alleys narrow at points to the width of a man’s shoulder blades, you can walk as …"

"The place has enchantment, mystery, it moves backward and forward in time with every turn of the feet; it is fitting …"

"They have created a man – no, a Frankenstein’s monster – and branded it with his name before setting it loose."

"Standing there, shoulders sagging, in the Law Courts, in Cardiff, in Bilad al-Welsh, he feels the blows of their lies…"

"They're doing this because they haven't broken me. If I had lost my mind and sat weeping in my own shit, maybe then t…"

"....I stand and claim my innocence so they have to finish me to protect themselves. Their lies and evil end with me."

"They say we got you by the balls, darkie! We own your land, your trains, your riv­ers, your schools, the coffee grain…"