Maar belangrik is dat sy skryfwerk die begin van ’n verteltradisie van Afrikastories in die Weste verteenwoordig: ’n Tradisie van sub-Sahara-Afrika as ’n plek van negatiewes, van andersheid, van donkerte, van mense wat, in die woorde van die wonderlike digter, Rudyard Kipling, "halfduiwel, halfkind" is.
But what is important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the wonderful poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half child."