Interview

In two separate interviews Dan Fesperman talks about The Warlord's Son and The Prisoner of Guantanamo, and describes what it is like to be a war correspondent and why he believes "every culture in the world is just one good shove away from the precipice of barbarism".

You set your last novel, The Warlord's Son, in Afghanistan. Your new novel, The Prisoner of Guantanamo, is set at the now famous prison camp. Why is it important for you to base your fiction on current events?

I've always been fascinated by the way events in the here and now echo so much of what has gone on before. So I guess you could say that it's not just the immediacy I find attractive, it's also the timelessness. In Afghanistan, foreign empires have been blundering around for centuries, always faring worst when they're convinced they know best. How could you not be intrigued by the possibilities of exploring the way that's playing out now, right under our noses?

Guantanamo, to me at least, represents yet another period in our history when we've let hubris and insecurity push us to the limits of what is considered "American behavior." There is a side to us that, when threatened, wants to just kick ass and take names and forget about rules and rights for a while. But if you look back through history, this has always produced its own set of problems. So it was fascinating for me to offer a fictional take on some of the forces in collision down at Gitmo.

When and why did you decide ...