The strange dilemma of the 'ethnic-fiction' writer is that you are supposed to carry a banner for your homeland, be a voice for it, and educate the rest of the world about it, but I think that's far too onerous a burden for any writer to bear.
Interpretation
Writers from specific ethnic backgrounds face the pressure to represent their culture and educate others, which can be overwhelming.
Khaled Hosseini expresses the challenge faced by 'ethnic-fiction' writers who are often expected to serve as cultural ambassadors for their homelands while also fulfilling the artistic demands of their craft. This expectation can be a heavy burden, as it places the responsibility of representation and education on the individual writer, which may detract from their personal expression and artistic freedom.
In practice
In a speech about multicultural literature, one might quote this to highlight the pressures faced by ethnic writers.
You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God help him.
There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that even time could not break. - Amir
I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way.
And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
Perspective [is] a luxury when your head [is] constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons.
The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
There is an angel imprisoned in it and I must set it free.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
To insist on purity is to baptize instinct, to humanize art, and to deify personality.
I am working, but when one has ceased to do seascape, it is the devil afterward - very difficult; it changes at every instant, and here the weather varies several times in the same day.
After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic, is is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there.
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