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"Let me say that I think the excellence, rigourousness and lucidity of serious journalism surpasses most published fiction. But information is not transcendence and fact not always the touchstone of feeling. We hear a great deal (too much) about politically correct or incorrect material, but we hear nothing when that judgment is transferred to feeling. It has been sent underground, but like one of Kafka's animals it scrapes its way up so that we come upon the work of Gustaw Herling or his fellow Pole Zbigniew Herbert, both of whom , despite untold obstacles, deliver psalms of passion and luminousness . . . . Books are the Grail for what is deepest, more mysterious and least expressible within ourselves. They are our soul's skeleton." - [Edna O'Brien]