Which Is Stronger, Politics Or Love? Is

For Me, Writing A Novel Is Like Solving A Puzzle. But I Don't Intend My Novels As Puzzles. I Intend Them As Invitations To Dance.

You Know, You Get A Bad Review As A Writer, You Remember It For 10 Years. You Get A Hundred Good Reviews, You Forget Them All. You Say Hello To A Hundred People In The City And It Doesn't Mean Anything To You. One Racist Comment Passes By, And It Sticks With You A Decade.

In Italian, The Word For Novel Is Romanzo, "the Romance." The English Is "novel" - Something New. Both Of Those Elements, Experimentation And Love, Are Fundamental To The Form.

Like Many Of My Friends In The Pakistani Diaspora - And Many Of My Friends In Pakistan Itself, For That Matter - I Have Sometimes Looked At The Country Of My Birth And Wondered Whether Its Future Will Be One Of Steady And Sad Decline.

Love Is Transient Even On A Very Personal Level. We Lose Everyone That We Love. Sometimes We Drift Apart And Sometimes We Die.