Orhan Pamuk and Salman Rushdie. ([1] Andy Friedman/[2] New Yorker)

“The Indian experience is becoming a diaspora experience as well as a national experience,” said Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, in a conversation with the 2006 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Orhan Pamuk. The discussion, titled Homeland, was part of this year’s New Yorker Festival and is now [3] available online. Moderated by New Yorker Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman, the conversation revolved around issues of identity, diaspora, and community. Forging a connection between a people and their language, Pamuk asserted, “I have a portable home with me all the time and that’s the Turkish language.” Rushdie and Pamuk also offer other insights into writing, perspective, and existing in America. Both authors are full of witty observations: Rushdie, in an anecdote about his family, said, “My mother was the Garcia Marquez of gossip.” You can watch other videos from the 2007 New Yorker Festival [4] here.

More: [5] Critical Mass, the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors, offers up its take on the talk.