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I read every one of the books on the shelf marked American Negro Literature. I became a nationalist, a colour nationalist, through the writings of men and women who lived a world away from me.

I am viewed as the Negro who has gone outside of the categories assigned to me.

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.

I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and needs of my interpreters.

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

Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference and subservience.

For African-American people, I am in the business of inventing a reality that gives a different perspective - on history, on crime, on art, on love.

I think of myself as a journalist and a storyteller.

I'm a storyteller.

I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it.