That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?

Art is as useful as bread.

She was one of those people who are irrevocably, incurably honest and therefore both inflexible and vulnerable at the same time.

That, of course, is what great works of imagination do for us: They make us a little restless, destabilize us, question our preconceived notions and formulas.

The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.

This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?