As a boy, I wanted to be the Peruvian Diego Maradona. Sadly, Peru hasnt made the World Cup since 1982, so I guess I did well to choose something different.

Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels.

What I'm most interested in is not necessarily the wound, but the scar. Not how someone is wounded, but what the scar does later.

As a boy, I wanted to be the Peruvian Diego Maradona. Sadly, Peru hasnt made the World Cup since 1982, so I guess I did well to choose something different.

I'm a believer in the benefits of translation. It's a necessity and a privilege - it would be awful to be limited to reading authors who's work was composed in the languages I happen to have learned.

I write 1,000 words a day first thing in the morning but I cannot write 240 characters to describe a piece that I spent six weeks working on with a producer.

I want people to read good work. If I see someone reading a book by Lorrie Moore or Jennifer Egan, I'm psyched. If I see them reading X Latin American Writer Who Sucks, I'm not psyched. But in terms of news, I do think that's important.