I think every person has a unique story to tell and we each have the different life events that happen to us and sometimes we may feel sympathetic toward a certain aspect of that life event.

I have a great advantage: I write from the perspective of my own voice. I'm not copying anyone's voice. It's my voice. I have the advantage of being a writer of English as a second language.

Often when people tell their story, they talk about their strengths and resiliency. It's really about their determination and their aspiration to survive and live.

It's really hard when you read literature in a language that's not your own. There are all these cultural references you have to be born into that particular language to get.

Even if you look in the dictionary you know the meaning of the word or phrase, but there's still the feeling of it.

Even though I'm not privileged in the money world, I'm privileged in other ways: I had greater access to education, I can travel, etc. It's the same with writing: the freedom to move in and out of different places, of different realms of existence, of different life forms.

Some people have witnessed the killing of their husbands, or they survived other horrific things. My sister is a widow but her husband was killed after the Khmer Rouge. There are different periods in which violence has occurred, and differences in how these women became widowed and how they survived afterwards.