In your novel, the Pakistani man is the sole speaker. Why did you choose to silence the American? For me, in the world of media, particularly the American media, it’s almost always the other way around.

But no one is silencing you. To the contrary, you’re scheduled to visit Miami and Cambridge and Washington this week to promote a novel of which there are already more than 100,000 copies out there. But there are not many of us from the Muslim world who are getting heard over here. And the ones who are mostly seem to be speaking in grainy videos from caves.