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I think I'm an American writer writing about Latin America, and I'm a Latin American writer who happens to write in English.

I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American.

I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and needs of my interpreters.

I describe my works as books, but my publishers in Spain, in the United States, and elsewhere insist on calling them novels.

I am a regular writer in Mexico, and I always tell the truth in my writings.

I do feel fortunate to have some knowledge of the great Latin American writers, including some that are probably not that well known in English. I'm thinking of Jose Maria Arguedas, whom I read when I was living in Lima, and who really impacted the way I viewed my country.

In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.

I'm a European, and I live there. I work in European films, and then once in a while, I make an American movie.

For decades, as literary editor, I have followed the growth of our creative writing in English. In my Solidaridad Bookshop, half of my stock consists of Filipino books written in English and in the native languages.