I guess we have a common feeling against the system. George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer. . . . I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.

I am 99 percent a fiction writer and 1 percent a citizen. As a citizen I have things to say, and when I have to do it, I do it clearly. At that point, nobody said no against nuclear-­power plants. So I think I should do it. It’s my responsibility.

I don’t think people think of America as a model anymore. We don’t have any model at this moment. We have to establish the new model.