A Challenge

Ok, you folks are really good at figuring out the quotations I've been putting into the blog, so here's a more difficult one: "It is only the story . . . that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence."

I'll give you 2 hints.
1. It's by an African writer--a really amazing one
2. I used the quote as an epigraph in one of my novels

Feel free to challenge me with your favorite quotations!