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If we truly seek diversity in fiction, we have to let the needs of others come before our need to define ourselves as social justice allies.

I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am by American writers, there's no doubt about that.

The American writer has his hands full, trying to understand and then describe and then make credible much of American reality.

The cultural decoding that many American writers require has become an even harder task in the age of globalisation. The experience they describe has grown more private; its essential background, the busy larger world, has receded.

Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fiction, and I don't think it's that rich a vein.

We all have our opinions. But I suspect that writers are actually less worth heeding, because they regard themselves as so uniquely important, so culturally sensitive.

The thing about not being historically a mainstream writer is that everyone feels like you're theirs: you're their friend.

New York has been the subject of thousands of books. Every immigrant group has had its saga as has every epoch and social class.

I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.

Our cultural diversity has most certainly shaped our national character.