Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn’t another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect.
Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But that, in my opinion, was justified by the sheer number of excellent writers coming from India and the Indian diaspora.
As a child I read all kinds of stuff, whether it was ‘Asterix and Obelix’ and ‘Tin Tin’ comic books, or ‘Lord of the Rings,’ or Frank Herbert’s sci-fi. Or ‘The Wind in the Willows.’ Or ‘Charlotte’s Web.’
Chance plays a powerful role in every life – our brains and personalities are just chemical soup, after all; a few drops here or there matter enormously – but consequences often become more serious as income levels go down.
I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me.
I don’t want to be a Michael Moore-style artist, which is not to disparage Michael Moore. But he seems rather unsuccessful at winning people over who don’t already agree with him.
Pakistan now is like a horror film franchise. You know, it’s ‘Friday the 13th, Episode 63: The Terrorist from Pakistan.’ And each time we hear of Pakistan it’s in that context.
Maybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.
I like the idea of an open, international London that thrives on attracting hard-working, talented people but has the confidence to tell them they must play by the same rules as everyone else.
A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.
The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism.
I think there’s a natural link between the fact that our self is a story that we make up and that we’re drawn to stories. It resonates, in a way.
I don’t listen to music when I write. I need silence so I can hear the sound of the words.
I don’t know if I’m truly at home in any language.
America’s strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.
I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience.
I am a strong believer in the intertwined nature of the personal and the political; I think they move together.
How many big businesses don’t resort to underhand means?
Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.
I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.