No one ever sits you down at age eight and says, 'Aminatta, this is what's happened so far.' You have to work it out for yourself, and by the time you do, it's ancient history to many of the players. We're trying to make sense of the past, so we start to excavate our memories.

Aminatta Forna

Categorized in : History Memories Time Work

All liars ... lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos fro... by Aminatta Forna

All liars ... lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth.

pain liars lying

If you want to know a country, read its writers. by Aminatta Forna

If you want to know a country, read its writers.

knows want country

War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly.

survival war people

What ultimately happened is that my country had a war. I think it would be extraordinary, as a writer, not to want to write about that.

writing war country

I was brought up in a household where you stood up to be counted. by Aminatta Forna

I was brought up in a household where you stood up to be counted.

household stood-up

Jung Chang was the first person to tell a grand historical, political story through a personal narrative.

political historical stories

The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.

narrators powerful important

A hospital is a good place to set various dilemmas. by Aminatta Forna

A hospital is a good place to set various dilemmas.

hospital place good good-place

I'm at my desk for about 9:30 A.M., and I stay there all day. Then there's a lot of checking Facebook and eBay and that sort of thing.

desk stay facebook day

Most writers I know go for word counts, and I used to be a journa... by Aminatta Forna

Most writers I know go for word counts, and I used to be a journalist, so I guess that's ingrained.

guess go know used

I don't have very many little fetishes, but the one I do have is that I like a particular mug to drink out of. It's just a small china cup, and I get very upset if my husband moves it.

small upset drink husband

Increasingly, there are those of us who write from outside the center, and those are the writers that I'm most interested in because they bring me into worlds that I did not previously know. And that, as a writer, is what I try to create.

create try know me

I get a very vague idea and - perhaps because I once was a journalist, or perhaps because that's what made me want to be a journalist - I go off and explore it for a bit, rather than mapping out a plot and then filling in the research.

go me research want

My family's a ruling family. by Aminatta Forna

My family's a ruling family.

ruling family

I temporarily became a surgeon for 'Memory of Love'. I spent two weeks in an operating theatre, watching amputations, and I loved it.

loved memory theatre love

I was always at heart a novelist and wanted to tell a bigger story, so I wanted to create people who told other kinds of truths than literal truths.

story always heart people

My childhood ended in this horrible way. I lived in a country whe... by Aminatta Forna

My childhood ended in this horrible way. I lived in a country where I didn't trust anybody.

childhood trust country way

Everyone thinks I have a coffee plantation in Sierra Leone, but I have a cashew crop project. I wrote about a woman who owns a coffee plantation! When you are talking about a woman writer coming from a hot country, there's a complete assumption that she is writing about her own life.

woman you coffee life

I'm a doctor's daughter. I'm not squeamish at all. by Aminatta Forna

I'm a doctor's daughter. I'm not squeamish at all.

doctor daughter