Born in Jerusalem, Wadie Said went from being a dragoman to a salesman in the United States and thence to a hugely successful businessman in Egypt.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

People die, but money never does.

I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms.