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I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.

I have lived in Chile since 1996 and reported from Chile since 1989, so I know the nation better than my native Massachusetts.

Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.

When I'm not working, my family and I have a house in the San Juan Islands. We've been here since '94.

I'm interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate - with all the attendant problems and complications and delight.

I do not feel an exile from America in any sense.

I've spent so much time the last seven, eight years in Los Angeles, away from my family, away from my friends, away from the city that is my favourite place to be and I just want to come here and have a proper life.

I have written about Chile extensively, and therefore I have read many books on the subject, mostly for research.