I’ve always been very interested in family relations. Because in a way, family is something that you’re so dependent on, especially as a child. But it’s also a prison in many ways. I mean you can’t escape it even though you try. You’re so emotionally dependent on your parents when you’re a kid. And it always interested me how this impact would shape people in a way. ((Annihilation In My Blood))

I mean, when I was young, psychotherapy was a big theme. You know, everybody would be talking about Freud and Jung. And so, I guess I grew out of that tradition in many ways. I mean, when you’re a kid, everything is so strong in a way, right? And the way that your experiences, your parents — I mean, you know so much about them more than they know about themselves. It’s a very strong, visual, physical relationship.

And also, there’s the thing about power in a family. Who rules and why, and how can you — I mean, how can you — to say it short, how can you survive your family? How can you survive being from a family, right? I mean there is a story in Baboon called The Car Trip about a family with like three kids in the backseat in a car. And it’s raining outside, it’s dark. Everybody is whining in the backseat, fighting. It’s a horrible claustrophobic story.

And yeah, I think — I mean, the sibling relationships for instance, Baboon is not so much about siblings. I think yeah, in Mosquito Bite, they have like the sibling relation in it. But, in my previous collections of short stories, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the relation between siblings. Because mostly writers would write about the impact of the father, the impact of the mother, all that. But I think the relationship between siblings is so interesting. You share in the way your history, you share life.

But on the other hand, the way you deal with your common history, or your family can be so different. And I think that sometimes people oversee that a relationship between siblings can be maybe even more important than the relationships with the parents. So, I think that family is like you can never — there’s always something to go back to. There’s always new inspiration.