Ten years ago, more or less, I realized that I had forgotten how to read. This was an embarrassing surprise, for a number of reasons.
First, I had loved books since I was a little kid, devouring some of the big classics before they were ever assigned in class, and always wondered if I could become a writer. Second, I was actually a writer. I was working as a journalist, producing newspaper reports about South America rather than weighty tomes, but it was my business to know things and produce language. And third, I was having lunch with a colleague who put me in touch with literary agents in New York, who was helping to see if maybe I could write a book of my own.