"To be able to do art, it was a luxury to me. My focus was to survive here, and seeing American students — one was particularly shocking to me ... this student was literally trying to commit suicide, he was hanging himself. I thought, in the labor camp, I knew what it was like praying to die, why this American student, young person who is blessed with freedom, and his pain was so unbearable that he had to end his life. And of course the department chair eventually got involved, and he survived. And also the burning of American flag, and also the portrayal of a mayor of Chicago, [Harold] Washington, they painted him with a bra, and I did not understand what [the] mayor did to deserve this. So it's a strange environment, very surreal."
On low points in her life here, including being raped by an acquaintance
"I just feel like, as low as I went, it's my own fault, even with the rape. And I feel like little things that Americans did to me, for me. For example, my friend ... American classmate who I called in the middle of the night, about one o'clock after I ran off, and she came and she says, 'did you call 911? Do you want me to call 911 for you? I'm taking you to a police station. Don't act like it's your own fault. You're in America and you have your rights.' All these things, the little things, it just warmed my heart and it kept me going."
On becoming a writer
NPR Coverage Of Anchee Min