We live in an age that's very suspicious of preachy political rhetoric, which means that there's room for art that approaches these issues from the side - as satire, as parody, or as a kind of outlandish speculative proposition.

I think novels - or any art form - can have a powerful impact on people's perceptions of race, particularly if they draw attention to the absurd inconsistencies and stereotypes we all carry around with us and don't want to think about.

I try to think of the social function of fiction as drawing the individual toward larger social and political questions. But I'm also very comfortable in saying that my novel - any novel - doesn't matter as much as larger questions of how we can see justice done.

Disguising your own origins is a deeply American impulse, but that doesn't make it any less compromising. The way I live my life is to try to foreground the tensions and paradoxes of being a white person who's interested in racial justice and reconciliation, rather than disguise or obliterate them.

It's difficult for me to imagine a circumstance in which you're disguising your origins in which someone doesn't get hurt.

White Americans have the option of not having to think about race on a daily basis. People of color don't. Race is a major deciding factor in their lives and the histories of their families.

There's a feeling among white Americans that there's no such thing as racial harmony, no such thing as a positive, productive relationship with people of color.

When I read 'Another Country' when I was in my early 20s, you know, as soon as I put the book down, my first thought was, 'I will never be able to write a book like this.' And my second thought was, 'I really want to try writing a book like this for the 21st century.'

The truth is that much of the plastic surgery we see today has a racial or ethnic component because it has to do with inherently racial concepts of physical perfection, like the 'Roman nose.'

There's an enormous amount of obliviousness: a desire among young gentrifiers to see only the city they want to see.