Most of my books have been in some way political, but I suppose ["Cannibals and Missionaries"] is the first one which deals directly with what you might call headline material: terrorism, hijacking and so forth….

[Once] I started the book it came to me that I had to show at least one of the terrorists from the inside. I realised that it would be refusing the jumps not to describe such an event from a terrorist's point of view as well. It was as if they were speaking out of the dark: 'Hey, teacher, we're here too.'

I don't think this means I've romanticised them—terrorism is terrifying. But we've seen, after all, that in many of these cases the terrorists find it impossible to commit murder or use extreme violence on someone they've gotten to know….

It's true, I suppose that I have a certain sympathy...