I lay no claim, it should be clear, to being a historian. So in my books, the intimate and personal have been intertwined inextricably with the broad and historical.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

The bewildering success of my books continues to surprise me.

Whatever the readers feel when they're reading my books, I feel it tenfold when I'm writing it.

I grew up around a lot of Rumi, Hafez and Omar Khayyam books. My parents in Kabul had all the volumes around the house.

For me as a writer, the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind, and certainly never with a specific agenda.