I was 30 when 9/11 happened and I had lived exactly 15 years of life in America, so I was half American. I was a full-fledged New Yorker.

The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism.

We keep the negative stuff because it's the negative stuff that's going to, you know, potentially kill us. That fin in the water - maybe it is a shark. That yellow thing behind the tree - maybe it is a lion. You need to be scared.

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.

The ruins proclaim the building was beautiful.

I really do believe that people surprise you. And one of the powerful things about novels is that they're about characters, and those characters live their lives.

All over the world, the nativist perspective is being privileged over those who are more recent arrivals.