Posted by Steven on 29/11/2011, 23:39:43, in reply to "Re: Interview with Aravind Adiga"
76.186.48.102
I thought I was the only one who typed and erased paragraph after paragraph. This subject you bring up is an example. I don't know how many times I've started to raise it, then cancelled my message.
Writers, and artists in general, seem to automatically assume a political rôle in some countries, while being ignored in others. It always has surprised me, for example, how strongly you have reacted to Orhan Pamuk and Guillermo likewise to Elena Poniatowska. In the U.S. (and the U.K. according to Adiga's interview), hardly anyone would react this way to a writer. I haven't the slightest idea where Philip Roth's, Marilynne Robinson's or Thomas Pynchon's political sympathies lie, nor would it matter to me if I did. Why the difference?
Is it a sense of national insecurity and sensitivity in some countries, or is it the anti-intellectualism in the U.S. and others that keeps writers from taking an active role in politics?
Message Thread
« Back to index