There is a simple way to strore and read variables to and from a CSV file in Python:

import numpy as np

np.savetxt('fname.csv', variable, delimiter=',', fmt='%d')

variable = np.loadtxt('fname.csv', delimiter=',')

The above should handle the variable as integers whether 1D or 2D. But if you want to include the quotes in the CSV file itself, then the following code would prove useful (for 1D):

import numpy as np

ar = [ ]

for x in a:

    ar.append('\''+str(x)+'\'')

np.savetxt('fname.csv', ar, delimiter=',', fmt='%s')