I'd Rather Create A Miniature

My Earliest Memories Are Of Watching Star Trek And Mash While My Parents Barbecued Chicken In The Back Yard. I Was An American Kid, Through And Through.

In Pakistan, Many Of The Young People Read Novels Because In The Novels, Not Just My Novels But The Novels Of Many Other Pakistani Writers, They Encounter Ideas, Notions, Ways Of Thinking About The World, Thinking About Their Society That Are Different. And Fiction Functions In A Countercultural Way As It Does In America And Certainly As It Did In The, You Know, '60s.

One Ought Not To Encourage Beggars, And Yes, You Are Right, It Is Far Better To Donate To Charities That Address The Causes Of Poverty Rather Than To Him, A Creature Who Is Merely Its Symptom.

I Feel Engaged With Young People In Pakistan. But That Said, It's Still A Small Minority That Reads Novels, Literary Fiction. But It Isn't Necessarily A Small Minority Of The Wealthy Elite In The City Of Lahore. It Can Often Be And I Often Do Meet At Literary Festivals Students Who've Ridden A Bus 12 Hours From A Very Small Town Just To Hear Some Of Their Favorite Writers Come And Speak.

In America There Are People Advocating For Trans Rights And People Like Vice President Pence, Who Is Vehemently Opposed. In Pakistan, Too, You Have All Kinds Of Folks - From Flamboyant Gay Fashion Designers And Female Air Force Pilots To The Taliban. A Cross-dressed Man Used To Be The Top Tv Talk Show Host. It Was Actually Quite Radical. So The Diversity Of These Societies Is Often Lost On People.