"How does a writer, a novelist, shock his readers by telling them that these are neo-slaves when they themselves, the neo-slaves, are openly announcing the fact on the rooftops? How do you shock your readers by pointing out that these are mass murderers, looters, robbers, thieves, when they, the perpetrators of these anti-people crimes, aren’t even attempting to hide the fact? When in some cases they are actually and proudly celebrating their massacre of children, and the theft and robbery of the nation? How do you satirise their utterances and claims when their own words beat all fictional exaggerations?"

"The present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice: they arise from a historical situation. Their solutions are not so much a matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and its internal ruling allies. Imperialism and its comprador alliances in Africa can never develop the continent."

"Goad him my child, torment him until he weeps for shame."

"Will the smell of the wet soil be too much for your delicate nostrils?"

"Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people's experience in history."

"Would I choose a watered-down, / A beardless version of unripened man?"

"What I boast is known in Lagos, that city / Of magic, in Badagry where Saro women bathe / In gold, even in smaller towns less than / Twelve miles from here..."

"Bush-girl you are, bush girl you'll always be; / Uncivilized and primitive—bush-girl!"

"Language as communication has three aspects or elements. There first what Karl Marx once called the language of real life, the element basic to the whole notion of language, its origins and development: that is, the relations people enter into with one another in the labour process, the links they necessarily establish among themselves in the act of a people, a community of human beings, producing wealth or means of life like food, clothing, houses. A human community really starts its historical being as a community of co-operation in production through the division of labour; the simplest is between man, woman and child within a household; the more complex divisions are between branches of production such as those who are sole hunters, sole gatherers of fruits or sole workers in metal. Then there are the most complex divisions such as those in modern factories where a single product, say a shirt or a shoe, is the result of many hands and minds. Production is co-operation, is communication, is language, is expression of a relation between human beings and it is specifically human."

"Prescription of the correct cure is dependent on a rigorous analysis of the reality."

"I do not hate progress, only its nature / Which makes all roofs and faces look the same."

"Moreover, I will admit, / It solves the problem of her bride-price too. / A man must live or fall by his true / Principles. That, I had sworn, / Never to pay."

"three different models of modernity and tradition”"

"Every discussion opens up a new problem area”"

"No, don’t! I tell you I dislike this strange unhealthy mouthing you perform.”"

"The price seemed reasonable,location Indifferent.The landlady swore she lived Off premises. Nothing remained But self confession. “Madam,” I warned, “I hate a wasted journey–I am African.”"

"[A] very cruel prison superintendent warned me against any attempts at writing poems—he obviously confused novels with poems. But why a novel? And why Gikuyu language?”"

"“[I]f there is a need for a ‘study of the historic continuity of a single culture,’ why can’t this be African? Why can’t African literature be at the centre so that we can view other cultures in relationship to it?”"

"“[T]heatre is not a building. People make theatre. Their life is the very stuff of drama”"

"In my case the regime wanted to keep me away from the university and the village and if possible to break me"

"Universities today, particularly in Africa, have become the modern patrons for the artist. Most African-writers are products of universities: indeed a good number of them still combine academic posts and writing. Also, a writer and a surgeon have something in common—a passion for truth. Prescription of the correct cure is dependent on a rigorous analysis of reality. Writers are surgeons of the heart and souls of a community.”"

"the ceaseless struggles of African people to liberate their economy, politics and culture from that Euro-American-based stranglehold to usher a new era of true communal self-regulation and self-determination”"

"the night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard”"

"[D]rama has its origins in human struggles with nature and with others”"

"privileged class of peasantry"

"desirable to eliminate lawyers altogether from the machinery of law administration in the reserves"

"though the whip has remained in the hand of the White government, it has been the Chiefs, the new jockeys riding the reserve horse, who have applied the spurs. he Chiefs are now well in the saddle"

"The people do not want tribal authorities…. They prefer the government of the time before the tribal authorities. The irst system of government prevented bloodshed. Now through the system of tribal authorities too much blood is shed."

"came on foot and on horseback to chosen spots on the mountains and ridges. his is how the movement became known as “Intaba” (the Mountain), when it was not referred to as “Ikongo” (Congress)"

"Thunder began to rum,ble and swift lightning rent the clouds."

"The silk-cotton tree emerges from a tiny seed."

"Allah Almighty, you never created a finer day. So my son is going to walk!"

"If in these essays I criticise the Afro-European (or Euroafrican) choice of our linguistic praxis, it is not to take away from the talent and the genius of those who have written in English, French or Portuguese. On the contrary I am lamenting a neo-colonial situation which has meant the European bourgeoisie once again stealing our talents and geniuses as they have stolen our economies. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Europe stole art treasures from Africa to decorate their houses and museums; in the twentieth century Europe is stealing the treasures of the mind to enrich their languages and cultures. Africa needs back its economy, its politics, its culture, its languages and all its patriotic writers.”"

"Old One, it is all right. We won‘t do thisagain"

"heirlooms, kentes and gold ornaments, which none ofus younger generation had ever seen before were all pawned"

"The son of another is always the son of another.Griot Djeli Mamadou íevery man there comes a moment when doubt settles in and 0⁰ that night.""

"Could we not have waited until thisevening or dawn tomorrow?"

"Griots are men of the spoken word, and by the spoken word we give life to the gestures of kings. But words are nothing but words; power lies in deeds. Be a man of action; do not answer me any more with your mouth, but tomorrow, on the plain of Krina, show me what you have me recount to coming generations."

"How few things good fortune prizes! Yes, the day you are fortunate is also the day when you are the most unfortunate, for in good fortune you cannot imagine what suffering is."

"He was great among kings, he was peerless among men."

"This book, is a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism and in teaching literature”"

"My grandchild, so you havemarried?. Why did you never write to tell us?"

"great among kings peerless among men beloved by God because he was the last of the great conquerors"

"preferred fortune and wealth and became the ancestor of all those who go from country to country seeking their fortune"

"Truth Commission Bill was signed into law by President Nelson Mandela on July 19, 1995”"

"new and chilling direction”"

"They came in hordes, and squatted on the land. It only took an hour or two, and the village returned to normal."

"I shall look at the African realities as they are affected by the great struggle between the two mutually opposed forces in Africa today: an imperialist tradition on one hand, and a resistance tradition on the other. The imperialist tradition in Africa is today maintained by the international bourgeoisie using the multinational and of course the flag-waving native ruling classes.The resistance tradition is being carried out by the working people (the peasantry and the proletariat) aided by patriotic students, intellectuals (academic and non-academic), soldiers and other progressive elements of the petty middle class.”"

"(Aidoo, p. 86)"

"For a few pennies now and a"