The following is a set of questions I prepared for Nemat Sadat after reading The Carpet Weaver.

1. I have a feeling that critics are going to compare The Carpet Weaver to The Kite Runner. But I think The Carpet Weaver is a more honest book, held together by the central love story. Why was it important for you to set the story within the specific time and time, in late 1970s?

2. It’s both a coming-of-age and coming out novel. Would you call it a gay novel?

3. Please forgive me if I am wrong, but there seems to an ‘intention’ in your telling of the story, where you mix personal identities with political identities — Maoism vs Taliban; homosexuality vs Islam. Is this correct?

4. Is it is so, did you have to compromise between activism and aesthetics (for example, Rustam’s confession to his own same-sex love felt like rushed)?

5. While researching on you, I found that you are the first person to come out in Afghanistan. Does this adds to a sense of responsibility as an author?

6. What you want your young Afghani readers to take away from The Carpet Weaver? And for the readers elsewhere?

7. It’s interesting that the book has been first published in India, where until recently homosexuality was a crime punishable by law. Your comment?

8. Would you say that the act of weaving carpet is metaphor for homosexuality in the book (Kanishka’s father doesn’t want him to be a weaver)?

9. Did you have to research on carpet weaving while writing the book?

10. I read that you are now working on your memoirs. Please tell us more.

11. Have you read the recent queer writings coming out from the subcontinent? If yes, please share some of the titles you liked.