A name is precious; it carries inside it a language, a history, a set of traditions, a particular way of looking at the world. Losing it meant losing my ties to all those things too.

In some ways, I think it's the closest that we come to the truth — is in the form of fiction.

I also read a lot of nonfiction. I just got "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein. I felt like what with everything that is going on with the president [Donald trump] and the parallels with [Richard] Nixon's presidency, I needed to know more about the man.

Every book leaves its mark on you. It might leave you hungry for that kind of book or you may be satiated, and you're eager to read something else. It might send you in a completely different direction. I love that about reading.

I love James Baldwin essays, but also his novels. I recently read "Another Country." I couldn't believe how ahead of his time he was.

Few [books] get translated and the ones that do have trouble making it into the mainstream. It's more likely that Americans will discover another culture through an American writer rather read a writer from that culture.

The ones that were relevant while I wrote my book were books like "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, which is based on a historical fact, "Ragtime" by E.L. Doctorow, and "True History of the Kelly Gang" by Peter Carey.