leer en español          When someone says: what are you writing? It sounds to my ears as if they’re saying: I’m going to set fire to your house. Or I’m going to kill your dog. And I don’t even have a dog.Asking a writer what they are writing is like asking a philosopher what they are thinking? Or a firefighter what fires he’s been fighting? Then, you wouldn’t ask a firefighter that. You’d ask: put out any interesting fires lately? To which he replies: Yes, I just carried a little girl out of a blazing building. That’s heroic. That’s awesome.You ask the writer: what are you writing, and it’s like asking a fish in which direction it’s swimming?Writers don’t always know what they are writing. The meaning evolves in the writing. Writers sense that there’s a crack in the universe and feel a need to fill the vacuum. Rightly or naively, writers see themselves as society’s conscience, a safety valve. Writers write because they want to save mankind.From this perspective, all writing is politic...