Whenever I go to New York I try to soak up as much live music as I can, including as many nights at the opera as I can manage.

History is never invisible, finally, though some people seem to work very hard to be willfully blind.

I take pleasure as a reader in books that tease with a kind of urgency of the real, even if it's only a manufactured effect.

Bulgaria is a fascinating, beautiful, difficult country, and I fell in love with it.

I am a gay writer, absolutely. And in no way does that fact limit the reach or importance of what I write.

I'm drawn to fiction that hints at nonfiction, that blurs or seems to blur the boundaries between invention and autobiography.

I'm not sure I can articulate any principles behind the decisions about what to cut and what to keep.