For seven years I wrote and published my texts on the Internet and no Arab festival invited me and no Arab publishing house wanted to publish my books, and I wasn't known in the Western world because of my political positions.

I've been working on the margins and I was aware of this choice from the start. I buy most of what's written and produced in the Arab world and I don't much like it.

I still write in literary Arabic but I try to rid it of the rhetoric, the symbolism, and the stuff that ordinary people don't understand.

I'm talking about the essence of humanity. Hope is mixed into the blood of every human being, everywhere and in every time.

The trail of "secret migration" was a shock to me. I knew a little about the difficulties, just bits of news in the media.

We used to watch executions. I mentioned that in one of my stories. There was a piece of open ground near the area where we lived and we used to play soccer there. That was where they used to hold public executions for soldiers who deserted the army and members of the Kurdish resistance.

In art class at school we learned how to draw tanks and soldiers opening fire at [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini and his beard. They didn't teach us the names of the flowers that grew around us in the city - wild flowers of all kinds and all colors. The math teacher used to whip the kids with his trouser belt. My father was constantly violent toward my mother for the most trivial reasons.