I do no writing while I'm in Belgrade visiting my grandma.

In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.

When you're in a place, the details you focus on are different than details you focus on when you're writing about it.

My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.

What inspires me most to write is the act of traveling.

In the mess of moving from place to place, I skipped two grades in the space of one year.

Suddenness," he says. " You do not prepare, you do not explain, you do not apologize. Suddenly, you go. And with you, you take all contemplation, all consideration of your own departure. All the suffering that would have come from knowing comes after you are gone, and you are not a part of it.