What Distinguishes A Great Artist From A

In The '50s, Listening To Elvis And Others On The Radio In Bombay - It Didn't Feel Alien. Noises Made By A Truck Driver From Tupelo, Mississippi, Seemed Relevant To A Middle-class Kid Growing Up On The Other Side Of The World. That Has Always Fascinated Me.

The Field Of The Novel Is Very Rich. If You're A Composer, You're Well Aware Of The History Of Composition, And You Are Trying To Make Your Music Part Of That History. You're Not Ahistorical. In The Same Way, I Think, If You Write Now, You Are Writing In The Historical Context Of What The Novel Has Been And What Possibilities It Has Revealed.

What I've Always Tried To Find In My Books Are Points At Which The Private Lives Of The Characters, And Also My Own, Intersect With The Public Life Of The Culture.

In Europe, The Enlightenment Of The 18th Century Was Seen As A Battle Against The Desire Of The Church To Limit Intellectual Freedom, A Battle Against The Inquisition, A Battle Against Religious Censorship. And The Victory Of The Enlightenment In Europe Was Seen As Pushing Religion Away From The Center Of Power. In America, At The Same Time, The Enlightenment Meant Coming To A Country Where People Were Not Going To Persecute You By Reason Of Your Religion. So It Meant A Liberation Into Religion. In Europe, It Was Liberation Out Of Religion.

When A Reader Falls In Love With A Book, It Leaves Its Essence Inside Him, Like Radioactive Fallout In An Arable Field, And After That There Are Certain Crops That Will No Longer Grow In Him, While Other, Stranger, More Fantastic Growths May Occasionally Be Produced.