Everything necessary to understand my grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man. These stories run like secret rivers through all the other stories of his life – of my grandfather’s days in the army; his great love for my grandmother; the years he spent as a surgeon and a tyrant of the University. One, which I learned after his death, is the story of how my grandfather became a man; the other, which he told to me, is of how he became a child again.

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

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

Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?

My family lived in Egypt from 1993 to 1996.

I grew up in Cyprus and Egypt, these fantastic places I remember fondly.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.