If you want to know a country, read its writers.
All liars ... lie to protect themselves, to shield their egos from the raw pain of truth.
War had the effect of encouraging people to try to stay alive. Poverty, too. Survival was simply too hard-won to be given up lightly.
I was brought up in a household where you stood up to be counted.
What ultimately happened is that my country had a war. I think it would be extraordinary, as a writer, not to want to write about that.
The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.
Jung Chang was the first person to tell a grand historical, political story through a personal narrative.
