I feel engaged with young people in Pakistan. But that said, it's still a small minority that reads novels, literary fiction. But it isn't necessarily a small minority of the wealthy elite in the city of Lahore. It can often be and I often do meet at literary festivals students who've ridden a bus 12 hours from a very small town just to hear some of their favorite writers come and speak.

My earliest memories are of watching Star Trek and MASH while my parents barbecued chicken in the back yard. I was an American kid, through and through.

Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn't another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect.

It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.

If an American teenager were to come to Lahore, they'd have wildly different experiences depending on whom they met. They could party and get drunk and smoke hashish with some, while others would say, "Let's get some religious instruction."

think that the external situation has also changed somewhat. The reduction of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has, in a sense, reduced how inflamed the situation on the Pakistani border regions was and is.

I would have bet money that Britain would not vote to leave the EU, and I would have been wrong. I would have bet money that Trump would not have been the Republican nominee, and I would have been wrong and I certainly would have bet money that he wouldn't win the election.