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Writing about Africa by Africans has been part of my literary apprenticeship, standing alongside works by authors such as Joseph Conrad, Joyce Cary and Graham Greene as influences.

African narratives in the West, they proliferate. I really don't care anymore. I'm more interested in the stories we tell about ourselves - how, as a writer, I find that African writers have always been the curators of our humanity on this continent.

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.

What we are trying to do now, this new generation of African writers, is to write about what it is to be a human being living in a particular African country. These are stories that resonate with anyone, anywhere.

Inspiration, in its rich variety, must be present in any discussion about Africa. We need role models - they are essential to the advancement of our society.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.

So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.

I strongly believe that literature can do something that nothing else can do, and that is embody the human spirit.

There's a power in what we hold as artists, and part of that comes with responsibility... to share the human experience and really allow that to be seen.