And it occurs to me that the novel I'd most love to write would be a 21st-century update of Achebe's final novel, "Anthills of the Savannah" (1987).

CNN: Things fall apart: Chinua Achebe and Nigeria

We travel for hours through broad plains of spinifex and red-earth anthills and see few other vehicles and no human settlements except, at the end of long rough dirt tracks, temporary Roy Hill rail-construction camps.

NEWYORKER: The Miner��s Daughter

The people look like little anthills.

NEWYORKER: Baptizing the Gun