I thought the novel would be traditionally structured, set in the present, with flashbacks to the 18th century. But the longer I worked, the more int… - Yaa Gyasi

There should be no room in your life for regret. If in the moment of doing you felt clarity, you felt certainty, then why feel regret later?” She

You cannot stick a knife in a goat and then say, "now I will remove my knife slowly - so let things be easy and clean; let there be no mess." There will always be blood.

I was devastated. I felt immense rage. The dungeons still smell after hundreds of years. There was grime on the walls and a tiny air hole at the top. When they closed the door, there was no light. Hundreds of people were kept there for three months at a time before being sent God knew where. The terror they must have felt – not knowing what was to become of them. You can imagine and you cannot possibly imagine.