Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory.

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.

The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists.

I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me, it is like a mythical place.

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

As a writer, you need a strong sense of self-belief. And when it comes to writing, I've always had that.

When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new.