" She turned to the second half of her question: ‘Why did you come back?’ ‘I wanted to be part of the new South Africa.’ Glib but true. In all the years I was away, I felt interrupted. Despite my resolve to look in the other direction, the life I might have been leading flickered in the corner of my eye. In another place, unfazed, a potential me was going about his business as if I’d never cut him short. Once apartheid fell – or sat down, as Leora likes to say – I could finally look squarely at this phantom who was living under my name. And then I got used to the idea that we could change places. A clean swap: your elsewhere for mine." (from "Double Negative" by Ivan Vladislavic, Teju Cole) "

― Ivan Vladislavić, Teju Cole