I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels

It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.

I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread

Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer.

I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels

I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself

A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader