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.

Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air.

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

I for one don't need a supreme "sacred" arbiter in order to be a moral being.

The people suffering most from the Taliban were Afghans.