Europe is a rapidly changing place, on every level. Immigration, post-communist transitions, the unification, steady presence of war and conflict, the inescapable challenges to the notion of national literature/culture-it all exerts pressure upon writers who must be aware of the transformational possibilities of the situation.

It is so much easier to deal with the dead than with the living. The dead are out of the way, merely characters from stories about the past, never again unreadable, no misunderstandings possible, the pain coming from them stable and manageable. nor do you have to explain yourself to them, to justify the fact of your life.

What you demand from storytelling is a moral - even political - import. I tend to shun that didactic aspect.

I'm bright, but there are lots of bright writers and people everywhere. In no way, at no point do I think I'm better than them.

The more you lose, the more is to be lost, yet it matters less.

For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house it was to salvage photos.

It's difficult for me to understand how it was possible to live under the Bush regime for eight years and then just roll over and do other things.