What is the pragmatic value of literature?
I will tell you. The information is pragmatic. The very fact that when you read a novel, you learn about a country, or about an environment, has already done things for education. And if at the same time your spirit is entertained, the writer has really reached his goal. But this pragmatic value that you mention is much more mundane than I would have expected. Don’t you have hopes in your heart that your work will open our eyes in some way or open our hearts? I personally, when I sit down to write, I don’t say I’m going to write something which will open your heart and your brain and make you a better human being. But I know from hundreds of letters and interviews and meetings with people that my work did do something for their lives. Because all of these love letters which I get have some meaning. I don’t mean sexual love. They say to me that it’s good that I got the Nobel Prize, I should have gotten more prizes and more things. Those people who are so grateful to me, I see that I hav
