What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I like music from all over the world. For me, music is the deepest form of communication; it is, par excellence, the conscience of our existence, what is essential in the vocation of life. When one sings, one becomes the carrier of one's own hopes and, at times, one's own prophet. I am as interested in music concerned with human destiny as I am in that music born of a strictly festive impulse. Contrary to language, which relies on our ability to access the language in which it was written, music speaks immediately to the soul before soliciting the mind. Today, more than ever, at a time when the world is losing its poetry, music remains one of the rare spaces capable of calming both attitudes and appetites.

If you had a book club, what would it be reading?
The relationship between a writer and a reader is too personal, too intimate, for me to imagine participating in or leading a book club.

What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
Each book must be chosen according to the person to whom it is destined.

Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
A photo of the youngest of my daughters.

What are you working on now?
A screenplay for an Algerian filmmaker.

Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
My path as a writer is also my life's path, which I reveal through my books.

What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
Be inspired by all the masterpieces of international literature, but find in yourself each of your books.