How did I construct Hasina? From books, articles, academic researches? From that fastidious disclaimer, Imagination? The first-timer's bosom buddy, Experience? I can point to this and that. But the only thing that interests me in this analysis is the impulse to create her - and that brings me back to the Dhaka balcony: my inherited memory, my internalised folklore that tells me that life hangs by a thread.

The process of becoming a published author for the first time holds only a few mysteries. These are the chief ones. Why is selling the Catalan language rights the most exciting thing that ever happened to you in your life? And, why do you not keep a photocopy of the changes you marked all the way through the copy-edited manuscript so that when it goes missing for days in the post there is no need to start foaming at the mouth? The writing process is not like this. It nurses its mysteries like grievances against casual inquiry.

Monica Ali in the Guardian UK June 17, 2003