It's true that misunderstanding and lack of understanding are often themes in my fiction, but I am grateful for the moments when true understanding is achieved, especially between writer and reader. It's miraculous.

The idea that somehow the way forward is to abandon the past, to me, is preposterous and both undesirable and unrealistic.

When I act as a translator, I am really doing a performance for my fellow Anglophone readers in the West.

The 'Grace of Kings' isn't a narrative about a return to some golden age, to a lost status quo ante. It portrays a dynamic world in transition, where the redistribution of power is messy, morally ambivalent, and only lurches toward more justice.