My Passion Has Always Been Books And

The Existence Of The Writer Is To Write, And To Write Is To Tell The Truth.

I Believe That It Is Only Through Empathy, That The Pain Experienced By An Algerian Woman, A North Korean Dissident, A Rwandan Child Or An Iraqi Prisoner, Becomes Real To Me And Not Just Passing News. And It Is At Times Like This When I Ask Myself, Am I Prepared - Like Huck Finn - To Give Up Sunday School Heaven For The Kind Of Hell That Huck Chose?

The Novels Were An Escape From Reality In The Sense That We Could Marvel At Their Beauty And Perfection. Curiously, The Novels We Escaped Into Led Us Finally To Question And Prod Our Own Realities, About Which We Felt So Helplessly Speechless.

Art Is No Longer Snobbish Or Cowardly. It Teaches Peasants To Use Tractors, Gives Lyrics To Young Soldiers, Designs Textiles For Factory Women's Dresses, Writes Burlesque For Factory Theatres, Does A Hundred Other Useful Tasks. Art Is As Usueful As Bread.

Those In The West Who Dismiss The Repressiveness Of Laws Against Women In Countries Like Iran, No Matter How Benign Their Intentions, Present A Condescending View Not Just Of The Religion But Also Of Women Living In Muslim Majority Countries, As If The Desire For Choice And Happiness Is The Monopoly Of Women In The West.