‘It gives me pleasure that I’ve outlived most of my critics’

settles down in Pakistan.

Himmat Singh Negi, an artist from the play Dukani, says, “The play talks about the live-in relationship in a rural set-up. Despite being faithful to her lover, the woman is called Dukani (‘easily available’). Dukani (as mentioned here) is someone who fits anywhere and everywhere. That girl doesn’t like this terminology and wants to challenge the mentality and the social stigma surrounding it.” What: Bharatmuni Rang Utsav

Where: LTG Auditorium, Copernicus Marg, Mandi House

When: October 21 and 22 Timing: 6pm

Nearest Metro Station: Mandi House on the Violet Line

Born in Maine in 1947, Stephen King wrote his first published novel, Carrie, in 1974 and has spent the subsequent half-century documenting the monsters and heroes of small-town America. His rogues’ gallery of characters runs the gamut from killer clowns and demonic cars to psychotic fans and unhinged populist politicians. King’s latest novel, The Institute, revolves around a totalitarian boot camp for telekinetic children. Excerpts of an interview with the author.

The Institute is on a concentration camp for kids staffed by factotums. Did Donald Trump’s immigration policies affect the book?

Trump’s immigration policies didn’t impact the book, because it was written before that incompetent dumbbell became the president. Children are imprisoned all over the world. Hopefully, people who read the book will find a resonant chord with this administration’s cruel policies.

For all the terrors in your work, there’s an underlying faith in human decency. This means you think people are basically good. Yes, most people are good. More people are anxious to stop a terrorist attack than to start one.

You started out being dismissed by the literary establishment as a lowly peddler of cheap horror. You’re now a lauded national treasure. How does it feel?

It feels good to be at least semirespectable. I have outlived STEPHEN KING

AUTHOR

most of my most virulent critics. It gives me great pleasure to say that.

Isn’t it also partly because the boundary between literary fiction and genre fiction has become more porous?

Well, there’s still a strange – to me, anyway – and totally subjective line between high culture and low. An aria from Rigoletto, La donna è mobile, for instance – is high culture. Sympathy for the Devil by the Stones is low. They’re both cool, so go figure.

The president orders every book in America to be burned. You have time to save three of your own novels. Which three?

Which books of mine would I save? Dumb question, but I’ll play. Lisey’s Story, The Stand and Misery. THE GUARDIAN