This paranoid Islam, which blames outsider, 'infidels', for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.

In the '50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay - it didn't feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me.

I have had many more close women friends than men, and I've always assumed that comes from the fact that in my family there was such a disproportionate female element.

Sometimes writing a novel is not unlike having a baby. You'd have to ask a female novelist to compare the pain.

One thing my mother did is that she never looked in the mirror and said, 'I'm so fat,'or 'I'm so ugly. I need to go on a diet.' Projecting that onto yourself is only going to make your daughter or son think that of themselves. Because they're a product of you.

Even before I knew I was gay, I knew I didn't want to have a child. I knew I didn't want to have one. I never want to have to release it from me. Listen, I love babies. I love children. And I melt when I'm around them. I also love my freedom and I love that I can sleep at night.

Members of weakly religious families get, of course, no religious training from any source outside the family.

I know it can be difficult for parents, but I really do believe that kids need to play the predominant role in the choices that go into their own space.