Art Is As Useful As Bread.

For More Than 30 Years The Islamic Regime And Its Apologists Have Tried To Dismiss Women's Struggle In Iran As Part Of A Western Ploy.

The More We Die, The Stronger We Will Become

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?

Once Evil Is Individualized, Becoming Part Of Everyday Life, The Way Of Resisting It Also Becomes Individual. How Does The Soul Survive? Is The Essential Question. And The Response Is: Through Love And Imagination.

In All Great Works Of Fiction, Regardless Of The Grim Reality They Present, There Is An Affirmation Of Life Against The Transience Of That Life, An Essential Defiance. This Affirmation Lies In The Way The Author Takes Control Of Reality By Retelling It In His Own Way, Thus Creating A New World. Every Great Work Of Art, I Would Declare Pompously, Is A Celebration, An Act Of Insubordination Against The Betrayals, Horrors And Infidelities Of Life. The Perfection And Beauty Of Form Rebels Against The Ugliness And Shabbiness Of The Subject Matter.