It seems that every new writer with any remote connection to the continent of Africa, either willingly or unwillingly, has first to wrestle with this… - Maaza Mengiste

Part of my concern in this book was to center the story on people who are often not written about in history—the farmers, the peasants, the servants who don’t have the social standing to make them newsworthy—because the stories that get remembered are so often about people who are already famous or noteworthy.

I think what writing should be at its essence is a creative expression, it should be informed by the needs of the story, by the dictates of your characters…I feel like I can write any character I want—an African, a European, a writer can do anything, it just has to feel true to the story.

These aren't the days to pretend you're only a wife or a sister or a mother, she says. We're more than this.