My books are a combination of my culture growing up, but also my entering a new culture as an immigrant and having to learn—to re-learn—everything so that I’d actually be able to survive in a new country.

I myself am mixed race — my mother is Korean and my father is an American Jew — so I've always felt other. But I think what's a little bit amazing about books, again, is the way in which they can sort of transcend that to an extent. And I also wanted the world as I see it — and the world as I see it is a world that is increasingly [filled] with people [of] different ethnicities.

Cinema allows me to be surrounded by different people and to spark my curiosity about all the cultures of the world. I have a fascination for languages

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.

Books unite people and books in translation are the thresholds of other cultures, invitations to travel and to know others.

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.

In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.

With all of my books I'm interested in where people come from in relation to who they are.

There is nothing more fugal than a book
to take you to different lands

When a book is explicitly about how marginalized culture and dominant culture interact, it’s much harder to stay detached and voyeuristic. If you’re white, for instance, you may end up asking yourself hard questions: “What do I think about how these white characters—who resemble me—behave? Do I act this way? What’s my place in the system?” You’re asked to think in terms of the larger picture, and you can’t pretend that a marginalized group’s experience is totally separate and other from yours—because, in fact, it isn’t.

I read everything. When I say everything, I read everything: children’s literature, Y.A., science fiction, fantasy, romance — I read it all. Each genre fulfills a different need I have. Each book teaches me something.

There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.

A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books occur almost accidentally, like a sudden change in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are an part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.

Reading is like a journey to a new place