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Writing can't change the world overnight, but writing may have an enormous effect over time, over the long haul.

I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.

I have no illusions that my work can rouse the masses to create change, because literature simply doesn't have that power anymore in my country, if it does anywhere. But I do hope that it can be read by those who are in positions to create change, or that it can at least be part of that dialogue.

However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.

A lot of things that should not be written were written without checking with me, things that were not in good taste. That hurt me. That is why I stopped talking to the press. Because they didn't want to ask me. They just wanted to write what they felt like.

I think people are confusing the right to write with the right to be published.

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.

I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.

I guess my writing has changed as my life has.

I can't complain that I've had a public all through my writing life, but people don't quite know what I've written. People don't read you too closely. Perhaps, after I've died, they'll look at my stuff, and read it through, and find there's more in it. That may be wrong, but that's what I comfort myself with.