Jhumpa Lahiri: Writing has to come from a deep source of dedication

“It (writing) never ends, is what I’m saying,” novelist Jhumpa Lahiri tells Samantha K. Leese in The Spectator.  “But if you continue to love it, and to need it, you will continue to do it. That’s what has always kept me grounded and kept me at it. Because it’s so easy not to do it. [Writing] has to come from a deep source of dedication.”

What was it that first drew you to writing fiction?

It felt very natural to me, as a child, to start mimicking or copying the things I was reading. I would read books, and write my own versions of them. I started writing fiction very spontaneously this way[…] when I was about seven years old.