When I was growing up, I remember having read all the books in the library. I often tried to emulate my favourite writers.

Films and books have been intertwined as far as my growing up is concerned.

Books of exploration have always fascinated me, like somebody going up the Amazon for the first time.

My mother wanted me to join the Indian army, as the army was seen as a decent and respectable career to have. I shocked my mother by telling her that I wanted to be a writer.

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

My mother is Afro-Caribbean and my father is Caucasian-American, and I was born in Pennsylvania and moved to the Cayman Islands when I was about 2. So I grew up there with my mother, and it's really all I know. I grew up there until it was time to go to college, and that's when I moved back to America.

I had an emerald ring that my mother gave me four or five years before she died. She wore it always, I wore it always, and I have given it to my daughter, and she wears it always. This ring belonged originally to my great, great grandfather. It's well over 150 years old.

My family is a conservative one. They don't want me to join films and I also go by their wishes.