I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as "task" or "role" when they are attached to literature. I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task. You know, gynecology has a role; sex is a gift. And literature is not about sending messages.

What is likely to happen? Either an escalation of violence or an entire change in the whole Middle East theater. It may well happen, and I say this to my Palestinian friends, that the Palestinians have in a certain way missed their hour. They had their moment when the world's public opinion was behind them, and a considerable part of the Israeli public was willing to compromise with them.

Literature is about telling stories.

We all begin much much much earlier. In fact, every one of us - every nation, every individual begins hundreds, perhaps thousands of years prior to the date that appears in the passport.

Recently with IS and Islamist fanaticism, it has become easy for the Israeli government to simply push the Palestinian struggle for self-determination into the same ranks as these fundamentalist movements.

Each time I have the urge in me to make a statement or send a message or to issue a manifesto, I don't bother to write a novel. I write an article and publish it in a popular newspaper, or I make a television appearance.

I don't write novels about expeditions to the planet Mars because I haven't been there and I don't know anything about it.