It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined. Over the years, as the memory of Sophie Mol ... slowly faded, the Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. It was always there. Like a fruit in season. Every season. As permanent as a government job.

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used.

I firstly don't think of myself as an activist, I never have. I always say that, I think this word "activist" is relatively recent one. I don't remember when people started being called that or what it means. It reduces both writers and activists, it makes it seem as though a writer's job is to just keep people entertained with best-selling books and the activist's job to keep on repeating the same thing without a great deal of subtlety and intelligence. I don't think either is the case.

I've never been that person who thought that because I've written one novel, I should write another and another. It's only when there was another novel to write that I was going to write another.

We must pay close attention to those with another imagination: an imagination outside of capitalism, as well as communism. We will soon have to admit that those people, like the millions of indigenous people fighting to prevent the takeover of their lands and the destruction of their environment - the people who still know the secrets of sustainable living - are not relics of the past, but the guides to our future.

But can we, should we, let apprehensions about the future immobilize us in the present?

As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I've spent my whole life fighting tradition. There's no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.