Once Known.

It became clear to me that I was privileged to be living in an African world that had not been written about. This was not the Africa of Conrad, or Karen Blixen, or Hemingway, or Even Laurens van der Post. No one had written about this particular Africa. That, I think, was my good luck. It was for me to describe this unknown time and place. There was a colonial hangover, and Africans were now being uncomfortably accommodated in the white clubs. But I was not a member of any clubs; I did not go on safari. I came to be fascinated by this Africa of hilarious dance halls and village feasts and bush schools. Crazed politicians ranted all over the countryside, and yet there was a power vacuum in which most Africans, rather enjoying the anarchy, felt free. In a cheerful, scribbling, self-deluded frame of mind, in this in-between period after colonialism and before politicians and soldiers tightened their screws, I felt safe.