I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant. Not: 'This is Dominican food. This is a Spanish word.' I trust my readers, even non-Spanish ones.
Cultural ‘authenticity’ is neither national nor exclusive. Even Picasso and Gauguin drew richly on West African influences in their most distinctive creations, reminding us of the cosmopolitan spirit that underlies dynamic modern identities.
Cities are a melting pot for different ideas, and diversity brings a high-energy rhythm that I don't think we'd know was gone until it was too late.
Where I work, in the Arab region, people are busy taking up Western innovations and changing them into things which are neither conventionally Western, nor are they traditionally Islamic.
I think my heritage makes me very open to try things, taking on different flavours, mixing it all up. I find that exciting.
I feel that it means a lot to the people of Iran that my film is represented at the Oscars, and it makes me happy to bring them that joy, that I'm representing them and that I'm able to give them that element of pleasure to be the envoy from Iran. It's a very pleasant thing.
The strength of a culture depends on its capacity to open itself up to other cultures, to integrate itself into them and to integrate them into it.
The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads.
When you bring multiple cultures together, there's a degree of push and pull.
I love the fact that Bollywood is getting so much more globalised. Instead of us looking out there, people are looking to India and coming to us!
