« Why I write? I never ask myself the question. I just do it. It must be the same for painters and composers. If you want me to get deep about it – to the extent that I can – I think humans create art because art is useless, and this uselessness reflects the uselessness of the human conscience. Our intelligence, our capacity for introspection, our extraordinary verbal ability – all are utterly unnecessary to our survival. Animals do without them. The absurdity of our ability needs an echo, a reflection, a companion. Ergo art.
Why I spend four years of my life writing a novel, putting everything into it, mortgaging my future, I don’t know. The sense of it being right and deeply pleasurable is so powerful that I don’t feel the need to search further. »
Yann Martel in The Notebooks, interviews and new fiction from contemporary writers, edited by Michelle Berry and Natalee Caple.