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I wanted to identify that the black experience is American experience.

I love writing about black women, but if you go beyond that, we're human beings - and because we're human beings, it's universal for everybody.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience.

I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.

In my time since moving to the United States, I've found that there is a dearth of great writing for black people. There are stories that depict us in a way that isn't cliched or niche, and that a white person, a Chinese person, an Indian person can watch and relate to. Those are the stories I want to be a part of telling.

I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.