I think writing is a very political act. I think that any writer who says it's not, is simply a writer who is disavowing the political connotations of what they write.

I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me.

The animosity between India and Pakistan is deeply unfortunate and dangerous, and it's something I've long campaigned to reduce. But right now, when there's artillery being exchanged in Kashmir - which is not for from here, either - and there are 100-ish nuclear weapons on each side of the border, there's never really been a case like this where two nuclear armed countries are happily shelling each other.

In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation and love, are fundamental to the form.

The ruins proclaim the building was beautiful.

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.

NYC doesn't have a big sign saying "You must love diversity and the rights of all people." And that's not what makes you love diversity in NYC or anywhere. What makes you love diversity is because you live in it and you experience it.