The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.

I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.

It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.

As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.

In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.

It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.

Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.

Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.

The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.

To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.

When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world.