Orhan Pamuk on the novel as a social force. I know some people thought him a political choice when he won the Nobel, and I know it’s about the books, not the politics, but it sure looks to me like he’s justifying that choice in his post-Nobel speaking alone.

Pamuk talked of the “literary globalization of the world” and outlined the way the novelist’s imagination — when employed to evoke “the other, the stranger, the enemy that resonates inside each of our heads” — can be a powerful, liberating force.
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“Contrary to what most people assume,” he said, “one’s politics as a novelist have nothing to do with the societies, parties and groups to which one might belong, or even dedication to any political cause. A novelist’s politics arise from his imagination — his ability to imagine himself as someone else.” This “makes him a spokesman for those who cannot speak for themselves, whose anger is never heard and whose words are suppressed.”