I think the changes that have happened, there have been come positive, but by and large, you have to say the changes have been negative. The situation has reached a fairly critical stage in Afghanistan.

In 2004, I took a one year sabbatical to finish my second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. At the end of that year, I was not done with my book, and had to in effect resign from work. I did. I never went back.

Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.

Then I think of all the tricks, all the minutes all the hours and days and weeks and months and years waiting for me. All of it without them. And I can't breathe then, like someone's stepping on my heart, Laila. So weak I just want to collapse somewhere.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.

He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ''For you a thousand times over!'' he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner.

Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.