I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.

I am certainly very pro-Europe.

I have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.

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.

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

I'll always love Paraguay. It's this most exotic place configured out of the imagination, the whole country.Paraguay will always be a special place in my heart. I go back a long way. I first arrived as a refugee in 1982 from the Falklands War. So it was a safe haven then, and it has become something exotic since then. I feel like I'd like the dust to settle a little bit before going back.

I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.