 But I do not have the reader in mind when I write. No true writer does that. |
| Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer. |
| What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other. |
| So I do not consider myself a chronicler of my fatherland or even a chronicler of Havana. |
| There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio. |
| I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me. |
| Many of my books have begun with the title, because naming a work already in progress makes no sense to me. |
| That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all. |
| I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost. |
| I don't have any style. |
| I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it. |
| When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader. |
| A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader. |
| I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips. |
| No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking. |
| I live in London and I am a British subject, although I do write in Spanish, of course. |
| I left my country because I was forced to, and I do not think that I am going to lose my language because I live in England. |
| I was never a true journalist, I was a movie critic. |
| Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story. |
| I am against the notion of style in itself. |
