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I tend to read non-fiction.

I have no interest in non-fiction. I don't read it and don't watch it and don't write it, other than a little journalistic column.

There are works of fiction which seek to explain jihadi terrorists as the militant wing of Amnesty International. I don't buy that.

The dirty little secret of foreign correspondents is that 90 per cent of it is showing up. If you can find a way to get there, the story, the reporting, it's the easiest you'll ever do. 'Cause the drama's everywhere.

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative.

For fiction, I'm not particularly nationalistic. I'm not like the Hugo Chavez of Latin American letters, you know? I want people to read good work.

I have been attacked in Turkey more for my interviews than for my books. Political polemicists and columnists do not read novels there.

One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel.

All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.

On the flip side, I enjoy covering the Arab world, I've spent my entire career here in the Middle East, but I would never call myself a war correspondent.