paul Auster talks (Guardian 29 Oct)
The novelist explains his rage at what the Bush presidency has done to the world - and the world we should be living in

One of America's more prolific novelists - his latest, Man in the Dark, is his 12th, and he's no slouch as a poet, non-fiction author, screenwriter and editor - but Paul Auster is not feeling very inspired today. "I'm completely emptied out," he says, "no thoughts in my head. No ideas. I am back to zero."
Zero apparently equals being "just your average everyday neurotic", but he's not showing much of a complex about the creative blank, sitting happily smoking a chain of cigarillos in Faber's London offices. (He clearly isn't unduly anxious about breaking the anti-smoking laws, either.)
If there is something getting Auster's goat, it's American politics...

(link thanks to Michael Evans)