"Elvis! Elvis! Wake up. It’s past six in de morning and all your mates are out dere looking for work,” his father, Sunday, said. “What work, sir? I h… - Chris Abani

He too, it seemed, had come to believe that he could somehow escape history. That it was possible, and even desirable, to live in a perpetual present.

There had been many such experiments when he worked in South Africa, in Vlakplaas, a notorious apartheid death camp.

He said to me, "It will always be difficult, but if you cry like this every time, you will die of heartbreak. Just know it is enough sometimes to know it is difficult."