When you've been living in hope for a long time as I have, suddenly you realize that certainty is far more desirable than hope.

I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex.

I don't believe people are interested in dates and facts. I don't think it is interesting to say what it is to be this person or that, but I do believe it is entertaining and perhaps even of value to express how it is to be that person.

My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not.

My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian.

My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990.

I've always said - I've always said I'm not, by temperament, a romantic about revolutions or given to revolutions. I've always thought that they are not the ideal way to change.

I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do.

I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer.

I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened.