I have a funny relationship to language. When I came to California when I was three I spoke Urdu fluently and I didn't speak a word of English. Within a few months I lost all my Urdu and spoke only English and then I learned Urdu all over again when I was nine. Urdu is my first language but it's not as good as my English and it's sort of become my third language. English is my best language but was the second language I learned.

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But that, in my opinion, was justified by the sheer number of excellent writers coming from India and the Indian diaspora.

Writing a novel is like an amusement park or a museum or a city. You go into that place and you have certain experiences and those experiences, hopefully, have some impact on you.

For many people, there is an almost power to be found in prayer.

Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.

Television has given Pakistan a truly open national forum for the first time in its history. Ideas are debated, leaders are assessed and criticised, and a nation of 170 million people is finally discovering, together, what it thinks.