I read everywhere. It's like a bodily function. I don't need quiet. I write and read with the TV on. I follow the TV show while I read. TV doesn't require a lot of brainpower.

Fiction and poetry are my first loves, but the really beautiful lyrical essay can do so much that other forms cannot.

Unlike other books or TV shows or sometimes life, my narrative worlds are stripped of implicit moral centers. There is only what you bring. That makes the characters risky in every way and the narrative, a journey of change for the reader. But I make the journey as fun as I can.

I think that most writers who are trying to write important and difficult books are in many ways putting their own humanity into question. Sometimes the journey is finding out where you stand in relationship to your own humanity and to the humanity of others.

In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

If you want to know about Africa, read our literature - and not just 'Things Fall Apart,' because that would be like saying, 'I've read 'Gone with the Wind' and so I know everything about America.'

That women are mysterious and unknowable is something every young man grows up believing. Men, on the other hand, never think of themselves as mysterious or confusing, and we are often at a loss as to why women want to figure us out.