Offhand, the only North American writers I can think of who have come from a background of rural poverty and gone on to write about it have been Negroes.

I love contemporary North American fiction and short fiction. My favorite writer is Jonathan Franzen, and my favorite writers of short fiction are George Saunders and Alice Munro.

I wanted to introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience.

I'm not a dispensationalist - I don't believe in the Rapture. I think it's an unbiblical doctrine, and in North American Christianity, at least, it is the teaching that is the root of much of our subculturalism.

Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.

Emperors, kings, artisians, peasens, big people---at the bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside, and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which.