I Take Six Or Seven Years To

There Really Still Is A Deep Wound, You Know, In The Collective Psyche Of Pakistan. And The Violence Has Left Enormous Human And Emotional And Psychic Damage. That's Not Going To Go Away. But That Said, I Think I'm Cautiously Optimistic That We're Looking At A Better Future.

Religion Is Not Something I Like To Talk About Publicly. One Reason Is The Politics, But Also I Think Spirituality Is Deeply Personal.

I Took A Couple Of Creative Writing Classes With Joyce Carol Oates At Princeton University, And In My Senior Year There, I Took A Long Fiction Workshop With Toni Morrison. I Fell In Love With It.

Some Of My Relatives Held On To Imagined Memories The Way Homeless People Hold Onto Lottery Tickets. Nostalgia Was Their Crack Cocaine, If You Will, And My Childhood Was Littered With The Consequences Of Their Addiction : Unserviceable Debts, Squabbles Over Inheritances, The Odd Alcoholic Or Suicide.

My Mother Has Been To Mecca To Perform Her Hajj; My Dad Hasn't. I Come From A Very Liberal Family, So Even The People Who Are Outwardly Religious Tend To Subscribe To Gender Equality, The Importance Of Open-mindedness, All That Stuff. My Family Is Generally Nonprescriptive.