Can you tell us how you became a writer?

I’ve been a writer since I was a child. I wrote my first serious work in my mid-teens, published my first book at twenty, and have been writing books ever since. I was lucky, writing is a vocation for me and I got the calling very early.

What inspired you to write this particular book?

My return to Thailand in 1995 led me to Burma, and within two weeks of my first visit there I knew I had to write a book about what was happening in that beautiful, ravaged country. I had done some work for PEN CANADA in 1994 and 1995 and one of our honourary members was Ma Thida, a young Burmese writer imprisoned for 20 years in solitary for writing short stories critical of the regime. So I was already interested in what was happening there, but that first visit to the country itself was galvanizing, life-changing.

The Burmese regime is bizarrely Orwellian, and it fascinated and inspired me immensely to meet so many dynamic, creative people who found various crafty ways to keep working, to defy the censors, to continue thinking and talking and growing–in effect, to keep insisting on life. Their sense of rebellion was very spirited and infectious–they had wonderful senses of humour, too. They were the most interesting, passionate people I had met in years, and yet they lived under so many different kinds of constraints. On a subsequent visit, after taking photographs of a student demonstration, I was blacklisted from re-entering Burma so I went to the border on the Thai side and began to get to know many of the dissidents, refugees, and revolutionaries who live there. During that time (I spent almost two years there) I was working on versions of what eventually became The Lizard Cage.

Is there a story about the writing of this novel that begs to be told?

There are many stories about writing the book because it is based on the actual experiences of many different Burmese people. One experience, which is my own, traces the origin of one of the main characters, Nyi Lay, Little Brother.

One night in Rangoon I went for a long meandering walk, got lost, and somehow ended up far from my hotel near an overpass bridge for a train yard. Down the hill and under the bridge was a makeshift tea-shop where a few people were sitting, smoking, and drinking tea. With that stupid false sense of security well-known to travellers everywhere – while I would never have done the same thing in a poorly lit, unknown part of a North American city, the attraction of it in Rangoon proved irresistible – I clambered and slid down the hill towards the fire and vat of brewing tea and the dark figures hunkered over their little tables. I quickly realized that I was the only woman.

After having made such an effort to reach them I was too embarrassed to leave, so I sat down and ordered my tea and watched – and was watched. Among those men was a boy, a small, wiry, large-eyed boy. Alone at one of the tables, he was smoking a cheroot and drinking tea, like the men. Even taking malnutrition into account, which makes many Burmese children look younger than they are, this boy couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. I chatted with him a little. He looked at me so directly, so unblinkingly, it made me more nervous than I already was. My Burmese was not very good – I can’t remember what we said – certainly not much. But I remember his huge eyes, his bony jaw and his filthy fingers holding the cheroot. And I remember his grimness. He was not going to smile and be charming for the white lady, he had more important things on his mind. I felt a great deal of respect for him. There was a fierceness of self about him I will never, ever forget. That child became Nyi Lay, Little Brother.

What is it that you’re exploring in this book?

Fear, courage, defiance, freedom – particularly how we make or destroy our own freedom. I’m also exploring the liberating power of language, the literal power of being able to read and the more complex power of being able to tell the truth in the narrative of what has happened to you, particularly when it comes to violent and traumatic experiences. It’s a very Buddhist book, too, and one of the major themes of the book and of Buddhism is the complicated nature of compassionate action.

Who is your favourite character in this book, and why?

Chit Naing, the senior jailer. Because he struggles in the way that so many of us struggle. He is in a position of power – the kind of power that can make people unfeeling, blind to others’ suffering – yet he wants to be compassionate and generous. He has lived much of his life keeping his head down and dodging conflict, but when the critical moment comes, he is extraordinarily courageous. He is imperfect, and confused. I love his imperfections. His name, in fact, comes from the Burmese chit-deh, to love and naing-deh, to be able to: to be able to love. That is what he is capable of, in the end.

What question are you never asked in interviews but wish you were?

None, really, though I have a question that I was asked in an interview and loved. Have you ever eaten a raw lizard?

Which authors have been most influential to your own writing?

Yiorgos Seferis, George Orwell, Annie Dillard, Jack Gilbert, T.S. Eliot, Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral: and many others.

If you weren't writing, what would you want to be doing for a living?

I would be a full-time adventurer. Or a yoga teacher. Or possibly a florist/gardener.

What are some of your other passions in life?

Greece, gardening, yoga, swimming, reading.

If you could have written one book in history, what book would that be?

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. Or the Bible. Why not go for the real bestsellers?

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