Radio is very popular [in Britain], but it doesn't connect us in the same way. It seems to have this community function.

This terrible frustration that we so often feel in the West in not being able to articulate and express ourselves.

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

I slightly feel, having written Paraguay and Newfoundland - and both of them have developed eccentricities through isolation - I am quite relieved to be back in France and Germany, and I want people to enjoy these books for the writing and not because they feel they can laugh - some will laugh - at these eccentric places, that's not what I intend.

I would love to write a book that opens people's eyes to the more interesting side.

I am sure you have met diplomats; they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.

Radio is very popular [in Britain], but it doesn't connect us in the same way. It seems to have this community function.