In an interview on Childhood Innocence

What is The Ghosts of Eden about?

It is a wonderful story following two children: one colonial, one native African. The colonial is the child of missionaries and they both, in completely different circumstances, kill. The colonial child just gets into an ordinary fight with another boy, such as happens every day, but unfortunately they both go through a train window as a result of this fight, and one dies. The other child, the African, eventually kills his brother but that’s a slightly different story. They’re growing up in the same country very close to each other but in completely different worlds. The African child’s day is divided by the requirements of looking after the herds, but eventually, because he’s clever, his father sends him off to get a white man’s education and, if you like, he comes into the world of the white man. But, in both those cases, it is a question of innocence: the African child cannot conceive of the white man’s world which is nothing to do with him, and he can’t understand his brother’s absolute resentment at his education. Similarly, the white child doesn’t understand why the friend is occasionally jealous, distant, angry and remote. They’re two innocents, because they don’t really understand the two worlds that exist in the one country. It’s just out – very new – and I only read it because I was sent a review copy. I thought: yes, this is a pretty rare book, whoever wrote this has really got something. I really did enjoy it. This is very straightforward: I do actually demand an easy read, I don’t like what I call cleverness in authors. And it’s very realistic; you can almost smell the heat. You don’t get the impression you’re looking at Africa from England – you are actually there.