My America I’m an immigrant. I’m from England, and it was England I longed for as a child; America felt like exile. My parents did relief work in Spain during its savage civil war, feeding starving children, until my father was “disappeared” by the victorious dictatorship. He smuggled out a note, and with that and the threat of financial repercussions, they were able to get him free, though banished from the country. Thus we came to America on the last commercial ship out, in 1940, as World War Two engulfed Europe. I don’t like discrimination against immigrants; too many are far worse off than we were, victims of totalitarian abuses. America is a refuge. I’m a writer. I write because my imagination will not be suppressed. America has the freedom for the flowering of the arts, including writing. When I write, I receive love for my fiction and ire for my success. I understand what it is like to be the object of such mixed attentions. I’m a naturalized American. My education, career, family, and future are here.
