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Quote by Lilian Peake

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The Dream on the Hill

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Lilian Peake

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“At the Unity High School in the heart of Khartoum, a place pulsing with ease and luxury, I graduated with a Cambridge certificate. Though far from stupid, studying was simply not my passion at the time. I harboured no desire to become a doctor, a lawyer, or a chemist; my only wants were a home, a man who does not lie, a room in the shade of a tree, and a child to carry my name. However, upon drawing closer to examine everything at close range, I realised that I do not belong here. I have no place in a world that perfects the art of smiling to one's face, only to strike with stabs in the back the moment one turns away.”

“For two hours, she preached — and for two hours, people were getting up, shouting, jumping up and down, calling to Jesus for help and salvation, and falling out exhausted. Some of these Holy Rollers, as Dad called them, would fall to the floor and start trembling rapidly; some of them even began to slobber on themselves. When I asked Mama what was wrong with those people and what they were doing on the floor, she told me that the spirit had hit them. When Carole heard this, she began to cry and wanted to get out of there before the spirit hit us.”

“When you write a novel, you are alone in it. I wrote that book alone, sitting in airports and coffee shops and lying in bed. But when writing, there is always for me a hope that one day I will not be alone—not in this work and not in this world. It is a bit like that old children’s pool game Marco Polo, where one person closes their eyes and swims around the pool trying to tag someone else. “Marco,” the person with eyes closed says, and the other pool-goers have to answer, “Polo.” “Marco, Marco, Marco,” cries one kid, and the others reply: “Polo. Polo. Polo.” Writing is like that for me, like I’m typing “Marco, Marco, Marco” for years, and then finally the work is finished and someone reads it and says, “Polo.”