"Much has been written about authoritarianism and its multiple manifestations, but little has been said about the ways in which people, even the most educated, seemingly open-minded people, internalise authoritarianism in their daily life. What happens to politics and politicians under a corrupt system is obvious. But what happens to a society and a culture under authoritarianism is a question less understood. The Polish poet, essayist and thinker Milosz wrote extensively about home, homeland, exile, memory, history…. As a writer who comes from a turbulent land of collective amnesia, I have always read him with a sense of affinity."

"New York is where I go in my head a lot when I’m writing. I have deep imprints of the city in my backbone: sounds, smells, music, pizza parlors, Chelsea Hotel, TV, fire hydrants oozing, the Lower East Side, people everywhere living their lives inside-out, on top, and through each other… maybe there is something even more in the memories old New York in the ‘70s—unpolished, unclean, lived in. It’s all there in this coming of age story of a young Puerto Rican boy/man. I feel this story all around in my memory bank."

"This was the first thriller I ever saw—on our eleven-inch black-and-white TV set in the small living room of my parents’ home in the suburbs of Birmingham. It was the most romantic and exciting thing I had ever seen, and I can still get lost in it today. The 39 Steps is the blueprint for all the classic Hitchcock films that would follow. Sexy stars, fantastic locations, and quirky cliff-hanger scenes that you want to watch over and over. In this film, it is the Mr. Memory scene that I look forward to most, and every time I see it, it still makes me jump!"