a political tout

China Mieville, responding to a reader who asked if he would ever be willing to write something that did not 'tout' his 'Liberal politics':

The way I see the world is, among other things but very importantly, a political one, and I write fiction from where I see the world. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the concerns, interests, textures and tractions that inform the fiction are, to various degrees recognizably, related to my politics. Just as they are with many other writers, of all kinds of varying positions, for whom politics are important.


So when you ask if I’m ‘willing to write anything that doesn’t tout’ my own position, how I have to interpret that is ‘Are you willing to write a book that is not written from a position of seeing the world the way you see the world?’ To which, the answer, of course, has to be No. How could I possibly do so? I don’t want to do so, either, even if I could, which I cannot. The things you say you like in the books come from the same place of which the politics are an inextricable component. I don’t say they’re coterminous – but they are inextricable in my head, and I don’t want to extricate them.

From this thread on goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/566606-ask-china-mi-ville?format=html&page=1