There has to be a kind of grassroots push, a movement, as it were, against the inherent isolationism of American capitalism as practiced in the publishing industry. There need to be grants and government support and a few publishers, mainstream and independent, who are not afraid to challenge American readership. We need to build a network of translators, publishers and readers. We hope that our annual anthology might provide an upsurge in interest for European fiction and then, as we publish it every year, become a habit to many readers.

When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.

Even if you tried to extinguish your personality, what is left in the story will reflect it, perhaps by its negation. Our lives provide the bricks from which we build these cathedrals.

The world is always greater than your desires; plenty is never enough.

Europe has never been a monolithic space, it contains a lot of people, a lot of languages and infinite supplies of history. I didn't need to do anything to showcase diversity. It is a condition of life and art in Europe, contained in every random sample.

I had an epiphany: I was a loser.

I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all.