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I'm bound to fail when I write in Italian, but unlike my sense of failure in the past, this doesn't torment or grieve me.

I was born left-handed, but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road,' which was very long, I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed, so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser, so later on I had to change it.

The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.

I find it really liberating to be in a place where I am a foreigner in every way. I've lived with this all my life - this divide, this bifurcation. And in Italy, I don't feel it. There's none of that tension, only the expectation I place on myself to speak the language well. I find it relaxing. Something drops away, and I observe.

I'm very attached to my roots, but I feel Italian more than anything else.

Yes, I'm half Italian. So my grandfather speaks heavy Italian... and I couldn't understand a word he said.

My brother and I have matching tattoos on our arms. It says, 'Humility is strength,' in Portuguese and Italian, because my genius brother taught English in both Italy and Brazil.

Growing up in an Italian family, we used our body to convey a message.

An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one time, that I can hardly use them.

Writing never came naturally and I still have to force my hand to do it.