I Eat My Heart Out

We In Ancient Countries Have Our Past- We Obsess Over The Past. They, The Americans, Have A Dream: They Feel Nostalgia About The Promise Of The Future.

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?

It Is Only Through Literature That One Can Put Oneself In Someone Else’s Shoes And Understand The Other’s Different And Contradictory Sides And Refrain From Becoming Too Ruthless. Outside The Sphere Of Literature Only One Aspect Of Individuals Is Revealed. But If You Understand Their Different Dimensions You Cannot Easily Murder Them.

Only Curiosity About The Fate Of Others, The Ability To Put Ourselves In Their Shoes, And The Will To Enter Their World Through The Magic Of Imagination, Creates This Shock Of Recognition. Without This Empathy There Can Be No Genuine Dialogue, And We As Individuals And Nations Will Remain Isolated And Alien, Segregated And Fragmented.