I can’t pretend that the aesthetic dimension of a writer’s work isn’t the most important thing, nor that being a writer and an activist are the same kinds of role. But if we don’t want to influence people’s thoughts and beliefs, why do we bother to write? Isn’t there always a degree of didacticism? I don’t think it’s superfluous or redundant to pose that old question: what is literature for?
Recently I have been wondering whether writers should care about suffering. I ask this neither flippantly, nor as some existential query: what I want to know is whether writers — by which I mean fiction writers; I doubt the kinds who don’t make up their worlds have much choice in the matter — should be trying harder to engage with global events.