I've always thought of writing as sort of active communication.

I've also done things that put me in odd situations.

Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.

Every fictional thing I wrote gave me strength to write another and another. By the end I wasn't remaining true to anything but the story I wanted to tell.

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. Granted, you don't have the physical disruption and disorientation, but writing a novel is like entering a new culture. You don't know what the hell is going on. And every day you feel like you have nothing, you're going nowhere. Or you feel that first it's going somewhere, but then you get into that horrible middle part.

I loved languages, and loved learning languages. It was fantastic. But I was alone there. I remember that time as a real Virginia Woolf time. More than any language it was her language that influenced me.

There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.