A novel can grant humanity even to those who act inhumanely, and by making men and women of monsters, it can offer not only a ground-level view of a particular conflict, but a descent into the substratum of human nature capable of the incomprehensible.

While looking up news from the North Caucasus on Twitter, I was linked to the sanguinely titled 'Seven Wonders of Chechnya Tour' on the website of Chechnya Travel, the postwar republic's first tourism outfit, founded in 2012.

To make a book convincing, it's less important that the right tree be in the right place than that the characters are emotionally real.

The idea that fiction can capture the stories that fall through the cracks of history informed 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,' which progresses across the two Chechen Wars of the 1990s and early 2000s.

How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.

I used to play music all night and sleep during the day. I was very career-minded. The music dominated everything and anything that interfered with that, I put a stop to it.

You have to understand that I never thought I would have a career in music. That kind of thing didn't happen. Not for women, not in Canada, not in the 1960s. It was something I did for fun.

At almost forty years old, I assumed my career on camera was over. And I was certainly given that message by all the TV managers and news directors who passed on me when I was trying to get a job back in the business.