I should say that I'm not conscious of any particular style or any particular literary device when I am writing. I have written 22 books, and they are all very different. I have tried all kinds of genres.

A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons.

And I am not one of those women who trips twice over the same stone.

The first few months of my life of every year are in total retreat. I don't see anybody except my husband and my dog, I don't talk to anybody, and I just write.

Give, give, give-what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away?

I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it.

I'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles, people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals.