The Namesake’s great themes are change and becoming, inventing, adapting, assimilating, adjusting to new states of being. It is about how life’s direction can be interrupted. It is about wanting to be something other than oneself. Given these basic themes, it resembles all my other books. The battle with myself, my origins, my place in the world, goes on. New identities, languages, and settings have been incorporated, former habits and passions have made space for others. Were I to stop fully waging this battle, I would cease to know myself, and my guess is that I would stop writing.
