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...Rider Haggard. Céline. Ezra Pound. Nietzsche. A few people wonder why I'm so interested in these writers whilst I'm black. They wonder why I like reading Rider Haggard when I'm black. They don't know. I can't explain to them. It's really difficult to explain. It's like when I read these writers I feel there is something between us, something we both understood. Something the people have never got to understand. I feel a sort of brotherhood with them. Writers like Céline and Dambudzo.

My poetry's something to do with me. Not with the ordinary man in the street. Not with my friends. I sometimes think I'm like Céline. I'm much more interested in myself, in my pain, in my sufferings. I always think that my pain and my sufferings have been much more greater than the man in the street. So I'm no longer interested in other people's pain. Like once, one person asked me what I would say if I was ordered to go to war. And I answered "bullshit!". I mean I can't go to war and fight for anyone. I don't think I'm even patriotic. I don't think I could call that a selfish perspective. It's something that has been between me, where I grew up. One had to fend for oneself.

PHILLIP ZHUWAO