I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.

Argentina is really in a different category because they butchered all their Indian or indigenous people in the war of the desert in 1850s. Which sets them aside from their neighbors in a macabre way.

Benedict Allen gives you the impression that he hasn't done any research at all, and I am sure he has. And when he is off doing his ice dogs and that sort of thing - and therefore its not only an exploration of the place but also his imagination in a sense. It's very successful as technique.

India, to some extent, courses through my blood. My father was brought up there, and my grandfather served there, and so on. We have a very strong family affinity for the place.

I realize how much [Mark] Twain fabricated things. I like it very much, but it's only half true. And it shows what he was trying to do, which was just entertain. Which he does very successfully, though the humor is almost dated now.

I am certainly very pro-Europe.

I have to be careful not to visit one place right after the other and write one book after the other. Because I fear writing the same book all over again. That's why I am taking a break and doing something different this time.