I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores.

Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it

I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.

There are many things behind a good novel, but in particular there is a lot of work - a lot of patience, a lot of stubbornness, and a critical spirit.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space.

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.