“I cannot write in Minsk. Firstly, I have a cold apartment. I will die there with my sick lungs soon. Because the presidential decree introduced the maximum temperature in Minsk… He [Lukashenka] does not need Bykau. He has a close-knit and strong cohort of own writers, who write his biographies. They write about him, describe his life. And it's enough for Lukashenka. He does not perceive anything else. The things that Lukashenko is doing are aimed at the complete elimination of the sovereignty of Belarus. He completely enslaves the people.”
“Ён Прыехаў, Сам Памёр, Усё Спакойна…” Апошнія Тыдні Васіля Быкава https://www.svaboda.org/amp/24853764.html // svaboda.org
(in Belarusian)
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Vasil Bykaŭ 11
Belarusian writer 1924–2003Related quotes
Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 11
To Reach Eternity (1989)
"Ten Books," The Southern Review (Autumn 1935) [p. 8]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Phases in English Poetry (1928)

Source: On a writer’s responsibility in “The Literature of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas” https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-literature-of-uprootedness-an-interview-with-reinaldo-arenas in The New Yorker (2013 Dec 5)