The original Zal story by Ferdowsi gives a very moving account of an infant who had all odds against him - he was left to die in the wilderness and a giant, benevolent bird rescued him and became his guardian angel. This tale thrilled me; I've always wanted to write about it.

Maybe in writing about and through trauma it was therapeutic in a way, but it didn't feel like it at the time. I was in a very dark place, in lots of foreign cities, far from New York. A lot of personal trials and tribulations took over my life in those years. It might be some time before I see what therapeutic function this book did serve. But for now, it's not even easy to read from it.

I write very raw, ugly, illiterate first drafts very quickly (novels are always in first draft in under a year) and then I spend years and years fine-tuning, revising, editing, etc. What inspires me? Who knows. I am not inspired that much. That’s why I write long form fiction - I am not much of a short story writer. Ideas come seldom, but when a good one comes, I really stick to it and see it out. I’m a problem-solver - I've never thrown out an entire manuscript; I've always forced myself to repair it until it was a lovable thing again.

I love to read and teach experimental fiction but yes, neither this work nor my first novel is really that experimental. It uses some experimental techniques but in the end, I would not say that it is experimental. I'm not sure why. I do a lot of writing on my own, and I have always just written this way.

There is less gray area there, less doubt. There is a security in being some thing all the way. Our culture, too, encourages this way of being - exaggeration, for example, is the key to advertising success in the United States. But hyperbole also seems a big part of Iranian culture, as well.

Being unique seems more desirable than ever. People are exhausted by clichés, by platitudes, by mass-produced realities, by what's been done and done and done. The role of a true artist is to present their own unique vision, and so it has always made sense to me that works of art should be radical.

But literature, I discovered, can also save you. Truly. Over the cliché and through the truth, it can save.