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.

Do I think that, when we’re teaching a book at school, should we go through a myriad list of trigger warnings? No. But I understand why people desire it."

Education must, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.

Having big audiences when you're on a book tour is like Valhalla if you're a person who used to sell Girl Scout cookies on the side. Because you want to give the reading that will sell the most books.

Learning, while at school, that the charge for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that, when they became teachers, women received only half as much as men for their services, the injustice of this distinction was so apparent.