"I always said that sport was my favorite subject until the day a girl introduced me to athletics. She told me there were competitions, that you had to go faster than the others, and that at the end you could get gifts (laughs). After my first race, I never gave up."

"My father has always supported me. He is always the first to push me in the things that are important to me. The complete opposite of my mother, with whom it was war. Here, a woman must stay at home, cook and wash dishes... The proof is that even when she finally accepted that I play sports, she called me a tomboy, saying that I preferred to go running like the men."

"For the Tokyo Games, I left as a tourist. I knew I had already lost. The country just needed someone to represent it, me or anyone else, it was the same. All they want is an honorable participation. You run your race and you go home."

"Today, there is nothing. There are no coaches, no competitions, nothing at all. It's radio silence"

"The necessary resources to perform on the international stage were not provided to her, a symbol of failing sporting values"

"Asking myself, "How can I make a difference?" led me to Can Too Foundation! Can Too offers professionally coached training regimes for participants at any fitness level, encouraging them to run, swim, and cycle their way towards a healthier lifestyle and, more importantly, a cancer-free world."

"I had just received the Ouest France Étonnants Voyageurs prize. Between that moment and my first book, Solstices, forty years had passed. But writing has been my constant, my life, my reason for being. I can't imagine what I would have been without it. It has made me an observer of the world, of people, of hearts. A sometimes amazed, often terrified witness of the world as we experience it, as we shape it."

"Back when I was living in my beautiful homeland, Mauritius, I founded an organisation called S'mily in 2014. S'mily was our local version of 'Make a Wish' in Australia, with a crucial mission - to enhance the day-to-day lives of children suffering from cancer. This experience has greatly impacted my perspective and has inspired me to continue this noble cause here in Australia."

"I'm joining the fight against cancer with the Can Too Foundation, a cause very close to my heart. This is not only for the countless individuals worldwide who are affected by cancer, but also for those I've personally known who've battled this dreadful disease. Thankfully, my family has been blessedly untouched by cancer, but witnessing the impact it has had on others around me has fueled my passion to contribute in any way I can."

"It all begins with them, the source, the origins, this intimate light that has always guided us, my sisters, Soorya and Salonee, and me. My parents are about twenty and twenty-eight years old in this photo. They were lovers of the arts. This is how Soorya became a dancer, Salonee a painter, and I a writer. Saraswaty and Balgopal Nirsimloo were open doors to the future, imbued with humanism, respect for others, and remarkable modesty. What we owe them is impossible to measure."

"About twenty books, as many translations, decades of work and passion. My whole life is here, there is no need for other images. My face will in no way express everything that is here. From the first published text, La cité Atlee, in a 1973 anthology, and the first collection of short stories, Solstices, published in 1977, to the latest novel, Manger l'autre, published by Grasset in 2018. It is a long, slow journey to the heart of words, sentences, dreams, obsessions, violence, and silence."

"It is a country invented by colonization. Perhaps this fact makes for extremes, in that there is not the moderating influence of a millennial history. Or maybe it is ‘cyclones’, those visitations that build and build and then wreak havoc, from time to time."

"Strangely, all four portrayals contain both truth and lies. Mauritius is like that. Contradictions and extremes""

"When I saw her in the stadium, she always showed respect. She worked with my mother in a factory in Floréal. My mother told me how, every morning, Maryse Justin would hand her bag to her sister and run from her home in Quatre-Bornes to the office. My mother always told me that this lady had enormous courage, that she was very determined. That stayed with me."