English - Author | 1967 -
To realise belatedly that there are Swahili epic poems which rival their European equivalents for sweep and power has been exciting.
Giles Foden
PowerRivalBeenExcitingEpic
The history of ideas is littered with the corpses of those who have tried to define culture.
HistoryCultureIdeasDefineTried
My father worked in agriculture, and I got to travel round remote rural areas with him and see a bit of the landscape and people.
FatherTravelPeopleLandscapeSee
From 1971 to 1993, my family lived in a number of African countries, including Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Nigeria, as well as Uganda itself.
FamilyLivedWellEthiopiaNigeria
My father was an agricultural economist. In 1989 he was posted to Mbarara, a small town on the Uganda-Rwanda border.
FatherSmallBorderSmall TownHe
It's the swirling river of time that makes our identities, not the monochromatic simplicity of skin colour or the definitive lines of international borders.
TimeSimplicityRiverSkinBorders
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.
WritingAfricaStandingBeenPart
I grew up in the African bush in Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda, which is my thing. I love the smell of the dust as you bump along in a Land-Rover. I go back there often.
LoveYouBackGoSmellDust
I can't think of a specific meal, but my favourite country for food has got to be France. I love those restaurants in the middle of the village squares.
LoveFoodThinkCountryVillageGot
In Kenya, crime and terrorism are deeply linked, not least by the failure of successive Kenyan governments to control either.
FailureControlTerrorismCrime
Ordinary Kenyans rightly want to be able to shop safely, and there is a long history of them doing just that, irrespective of their religion or that of the shop owner.
HistoryReligionDoingLongWant
You can gesture at the transnational problem of Islamist terrorism all you like, but it's just hot air unless you invest in proper security on the ground in your own country, with the right safeguards to civil liberties.
ProblemYouSecurityCountryHot
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Giles Foden quotes