Ekow Eshun: ‘I dreaded going to sleep for fear of seeing him’

Success allowed the writer to escape the past, but at a cost: nightmares haunted him. Here, he recounts how he escaped the terrifying stranger stalking his dreams

The town was up in the mountains, a little Ruritanian place of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. It was market day and in the main square, crowds of locals browsed stalls piled with fresh bread, cheese and cooked sausage. I drifted among them, passing unnoticed.

In the afternoon the sun slid behind the mountains. With the waning of the light a madness seemed to infect the crowd. Uniformly they turned to me, evil intent in their eyes.