I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I dont think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?

I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I dont think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?

Las Vegas is the expression, in glitter and concrete, of Americas brittle and mutating id.

To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.

The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.

The world other than as advertised can be an amazing place.

There are plenty of brilliant people who are too stressed out to read challenging literary novels.