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On whether he has seen everything there is to see on the farm

"Well, there are days when I wonder that, but the fact is that there's an endless variation. And the weather patterns are never the same; the way the pastures are grazed is never the same. Odd things happen. ... Basically, there's always an errand or a task or a burden that leads you out onto the land. And the moment you get onto the land, everything changes in front of you, no matter what you think you've seen before."

On advice to aspiring writers

"The simplest way to put it, I think, is to make sure you're keeping your language as simple, as straightforward as possible, and to trust the reader. And by that I mean trust that the reader's perceptions resemble your own perceptions. ...

"So many young people I meet are just as perceptive about the world around them as I or any other writer happens to be, but they don't believe that their perceptions actually matter because nobody's really taught them that they do. And acquiring that conviction, that what you notice really makes a difference and can be communicated in a way that makes a difference, is really a huge step forward."

Read an excerpt of More Scenes from the Rural Life

As the ailing Nelson Mandela turned 95 this month, the international community celebrated his legacy and rooted for his recovery.

Just to the north in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe, 89, is running for re-election this week. He's looking to extend his 33 years in power, which have been marked by authoritarian rule, economic collapse and international isolation.

These two men have shaped their neighboring countries in dramatically different ways. Mandela is a global icon in a country often cited as a land of hope. Mugabe is a widely seen as pariah in a country that has endured a precipitous decline.

Their global reputations could hardly be more different. With both men in the news, we took a look at their legacies, and two things stand out.

First, before Mandela and Mugabe came to power, they had remarkably similar biographies. Second, neither South Africa's successes under Mandela nor Zimbabwe's failings under Mugabe were foregone conclusions.

Parallel Lives

First, the similarities between the two men. Martin Meredith, a British author who has written biographies of both men, sums them up this way:

"Both were born in an era when white power prevailed throughout Africa, Mandela in 1918, Mugabe in 1924. Both were products of the Christian mission school system, Mandela of the Methodist variety, Mugabe of the Catholic. Both attended the same university, Fort Hare in South Africa. Both emerged as members of the small African professional elite, Mandela a lawyer, Mugabe a teacher. Both were drawn into the struggle against white minority rule, Mandela in South Africa, Mugabe in neighboring Rhodesia. Both advocated violence to bring down white-run regimes. Both endured long terms of imprisonment, Mandela, 27 years, Mugabe, 11 years."

More than 1,000 inmates, many convicted of serious crimes, have escaped from a prison in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, the country's prime minister confirmed.

According to The Associated Press, it wasn't immediately clear if the jailbreak at Koyfiya prison was part of a larger series of protests taking place across the country on Saturday in response to the assassination on Friday of prominent political activist Abdelsalam al-Mosmary, who was an outspoken opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to AP:

"Gunmen outside of the prison fired into the air as inmates inside began setting fires, suggesting the jailbreak was preplanned, a Benghazi-based security official said. Those who escaped either face or were convicted of serious charges, a security official at Koyfiya prison said. ...

Special forces later arrested 18 of the escapees, while some returned on their own, said Mohammed Hejazi, a government security official in Benghazi. Three inmates were wounded in the jailbreak and were taken to a local hospital, he said."

Russia so far has refused to extradite former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, portraying this as a principled stand to protect a whistle-blower.

But while the United States and Russia don't see eye to eye over extradition issues (the two countries don't have an extradition treaty), Moscow often cooperates with requests from governments in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

The human rights group Amnesty International says Russian authorities have unlawfully returned and sometimes forcibly abducted asylum seekers, sending them back to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, countries accused of widespread human rights abuses.

Many of the suspects are wanted on charges of belonging to banned Islamist groups or sharing extremist literature, claims that human rights groups say are often based on shoddy evidence.

An Abduction

Amnesty reports that Tajikistan sought the extradition of 27-year-old Savriddin Dzhurayev on charges that included organizing a criminal conspiracy in 1992.

Russian authorities approved the request, though Dzhurayev was only 7 years old at the time of one of the alleged crimes. After appealing to the European Court of Human Rights, Dzhurayev was released from detention in Russia and granted temporary asylum there — the status Snowden is now seeking.

But Dzhurayev, who denies the charges against him, told his lawyers he was abducted by a group of men in plainclothes while walking in Moscow in 2011.

They forced him into a van, he says, beat him and put him on a plane back to Tajikistan, even though he didn't have a valid passport. Russian authorities denied playing a role in Dzhurayev's return. He is now serving a 26-year prison sentence after what Amnesty says was an unfair trial.

Vitaly Ponomarev, director of the Central Asia program at Memorial, a Russian human rights organization, says evidence for charges of illegal religious activity is often obtained using torture.

To avoid ill-treatment, an individual being questioned in Uzbekistan may offer information about someone who no longer lives in the country, thinking this puts the person beyond the authorities' reach.

"There's not a citizen of Uzbekistan in Russia who can guarantee he won't be named by one of his old acquaintances during questioning and wind up on a list of extremists," Ponomarev said.

Russian authorities cooperate on removals in these cases, he said, because they view the religious element of the accusations with suspicion.

"They consider the presence of such individuals in Russia to be unwanted," Ponomarev said. "There's some fear in relationship to Islam."

Many Extraditions

Moscow has also cooperated with other governments in more traditional extraditions. The website of the Russian prosecutor general, the authority that handles extraditions, says that the office authorized the extradition of 1,101 people in 2007, the most recent year for which data were published.

This year, Russia agreed to return to Kazakhstan a former official accused of embezzlement.

In 2011 it sent Leonid Kaplan, a Soviet emigre and citizen of the U.S. and Israel, to Spain to face charges of money-laundering and organized crime.

And in 2010, Russia extradited Georgian crime boss Tariel Oniani, also to Spain, where he was wanted on money-laundering charges.

But human rights groups say kidnappings like Dzhurayev's are on the rise.

While Russia's forced returns to Central Asia have been found unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International says Western governments have been silent because they carry out similar operations when pursuing suspected terrorists.

A report by the Open Society Justice Initiative found that more than 50 countries have cooperated with the U.S. on extraordinary renditions and secret detentions since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.