to fight? paul auster, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. it is a pleasure to be in your home, your writing study is just below us, the floor below. just tell me, does it matter to you when you are writing what is going on in the world outside yourfront door? does it affect your writing? well, it depends on what you mean. if there's a fire engine screeching in front of my door, it will interrupt my concentration, and i might go out and see what's going on. but if there's a distant war going on in another place and i know about it, i'm not going to read about it while i'm doing my work for the day. but i certainly will inform myself about it later. you talk of distant wars. i'm thinking of wars much closer to home. you write a lot about your take on american politics. you've talked about your feelings through the course of four years of donald trump. you've talked about a country at war with itself.