Daniel Alarcon

Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws of physics that you don't understand, in a new universe. So having written one novel does nothing for you when you have to write the second one.

I began visiting Lima's prisons back in 2007, when my first novel, 'Lost City Radio,' was published in Peru.

As a boy, I wanted to be the Peruvian Diego Maradona. Sadly, Peru hasn't made the World Cup since 1982, so I guess I did well to choose something different.

I love the novel because it's like a love affair. You can just fall into it and keep going, and you never know where it's going to take you.

At the most basic level, I appreciate writers who have something to say.

I love to walk through the streets of Jesus Maria and Pueblo Libre. The Spanish colonial buildings are in bright colors, two stories high, with these intricate wooden, windowed balconies.

I do feel fortunate to have some knowledge of the great Latin American writers, including some that are probably not that well known in English. I'm thinking of Jose Maria Arguedas, whom I read when I was living in Lima, and who really impacted the way I viewed my country.

Publication in 'The New Yorker' meant everything, and it's no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

Peru is a country where more than half the people would emigrate if given the chance. That's half the population that is willing to abandon everything they know for the uncertainty of a life in a foreign land, in another language.

It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.

How emigration is actually lived - well, this depends on many factors: education, economic station, language, where one lands, and what support network is in place at the site of arrival.

The impact of any particular writer on your own work is hard to discern.