IT TOOK ME (Nick Wood) a good few years before I plucked up the courage to write the 'Other', i.e. to me, someone who was not white and male. I firstly wrote as a 'white woman' in 'God in the Box' (2003), set in an increasingly familiar London. Phew - that was picked up, published - and I wasn't scorned as a 'sexist imposter'! The leap to crossing the 'colour' divide took a bit longer for me though - part of my fear was that, given South Africa's history, it would be seen as a form of colonization of experience. Then, one day, I sat down and thought long and hard about it.