You have predominantly studied Arts. How easy or difficult was it to incorporate so much of Science in The Almond Tree? Has Science always interested you or did you have to develop an interest in it in order to make it such an important part of the novel?

My story is very personal. The seed for the story comes from a glimmer of home I witnessed at Harvard when I saw a Palestinian and an Israeli scientist working together. At the time, I spoke Arabic very well and helped the Palestinian translate his lectures from Arabic to English. His research was similar to what I discuss, but not the same. I don’t know science at all or math. I had to have someone help me with the math equations and, in fact, three of the equations were wrong in the book. I have since corrected them in the current PDF.