ronit was my fantasy.he was as if i had hurled a version of myself into the future and then went racing after it. at that time, i was esti. it just strikes me that there's a great deal of honesty in all of your work. we're going to get to your later work in just a moment. but throughout your work, there is this sort of searing determination to tell the truth about yourself and the world around you. and i just wonder whether, you know, as you reflect on all of the stuff you've done, whether you feel that has sometimes got you into trouble and caused you a lot of pain. oh, it's never as much pain to tell the truth as it is to keep on lying. the greatest freedom in the world is to be able to say exactly who you are and exactly what you think. you know, some of my later work has dealt with feminist themes and... i have in the past had, for example, people saying to me, "oh, how can you write "these things about saudi arabia?" where i criticise the saudi arabian government's treatment of women in my novel the p