In the real world, immeasurable hurt is caused by terrorists based in Pakistan who attack countries like India.

There is no alternative to the peaceful coexistence of cultures.

If you're going to write a memoir, try to be as honest and open as you can.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms.

I did a lot of student acting when I was young.

I do have a lot of time for people in my life, and friendship is a very important subject for me. I think I'm unusual among the writers I know in that respect.

Laila Lalami has fashioned an absorbing story of one of the first encounters between Spanish conquistadores and Native Americans, a frightening, brutal, and much-falsified history that here, in her brilliantly imagined fiction, is rewritten to give us something that feels very like the truth.