There Is A Frustration Too,

I Remember Reading An Interview With A Writer Who Said That In Nonfiction If You Have One Lie It Sort Of Messes It Up. But In Fiction The Real Details Give You So Much More Credibility, Because People Do So Much Research Just To Write Fiction. In Fiction You're Trying To Recreate Something Lifelike.

There Is A Frustration Too, That At Moments When There's Not A Coup, When There Are Not People In The Streets, That The Country Disappears From People's Consciousness.

Often When You're An Immigrant Writing In English, People Think It's Primarily A Commercial Choice. But For Many Of Us, It's A Choice That Rises Out Of The Circumstances Of Our Lives. These Are The Tools I Have At My Disposal, Based On My Experiences. It's A Constant Debate, Not Just In My Community But In Other Communities As Well. Where Do You Belong? You're Kind Of One Of Us, But You Now Write In A Different Language.

Jephthah Called Together The Men Of Gilead And Fought Against Ephraim. The Gileadites Captured The Fords Of The Jordan Leading To Ephraim, And Whenever A Survivor Of Ephraim Said, 'let Me Cross Over,' The Men Of Gilead Asked Him, 'are You An Ephraimite?' If He Replied, 'no,' They Said, 'all Right, Say Shibboleth.' If He Said, 'sibboleth,' Because He Could Not Pronounce The Word Correctly, They Seized And Killed Him At The Fords Of The Jordan. Fourty-thousand Were Killed At The Time.

People Who Want Alternative Information Have To Try So Hard To Find It.