Winning an official World Cup with the South African team had become my burning ambition.
I remember when I first came to America, nobody had a clue what a black Englishman was. I was either South African or Australian to them.
As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.
I'm always very proud of belonging to three minorities: gay, Jewish, white South African.
The reason I'm in San Diego is not because I want distance from South Africa but because I want proximity to the people I love. But I don't envy growing up in America. As ugly as aspects of it were, my biggest blessing was to be born a South African.
The toughest challenge I faced came right at the beginning of my career with 'Blood Knot,' which was trying to convince South African audiences that South African stories also had a place on the stage.
I think all of my writing life led up to the writing of 'The Train Driver' because it deals with my own inherited blindness and guilt and all of what being a white South African in South Africa during those apartheid years meant.
In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela's side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa's first free elections.
The South African government, unlike a lot of African governments, isn't poor.
The people I mixed with in Monaco didn't relate to my South African mentality or humor... Although I have met some wonderful people since I've been living in Monaco, I regard them all as acquaintances. I only have two people I consider friends here.
