Autobiographical details Gary Shteyngart (q.v.) wove quasi-steganographically into his zippy, juicy profile of M.I.A., GQ, July 2010:
| Real life | Roman à clef |
|---|---|
| “I was a kid at Oberlin College, somewhere in Ohio” | Accidental College |
| “I was flying Olympic Airways from Athens to Zurich” | Austrian Airways from Moscow to St. Petersburg |
| “[M]y roommate Mike ‘The Zap’ Zapler” | Alyosha Bob |
| “The Zap and I were both political-science majors with a lot to lose” | Multicultural-studies major |
| “I fell under the influence of the Detroit ghetto-tech rapper DJ Assault” | “ ‘We must reject European music categorically. Even so-called progressive house!’ ” |
“And then, like many men and women stumbling headlong into middle age, I just stopped giving a shit about music.”