We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as my characters.

Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.

I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.