SOURCE: "Out of Africa and India," in Harper's Magazine, Vol. 252, No. 1511, April, 1976, pp. 101-02.

In the following excerpt, Godwin discusses the changing African dimension of the characters in Selected Stories.

Reading a collection of stories by a good writer affords a pleasure quite distinct from reading a novel by the same writer. The pleasure comes from the activeness demanded from the reader, from the quick leaps of synthesis he must make as he skips around in the book, pouncing on the stories that promise to attract him most, surprising the author in a variety of themes, moods, and stances as the author moves through his own time: the writing-time of the stories. Reading a collection of stories written out of a high-quality perceptiveness is like stalking the master stalker: you can sneak up on him at any angle and watch him pursue the prey. There are no long...