Typed on the letterhead of the University of Singapore.
Thanking her for the questionnaire but saying he has been living outside the U.S. since 1963 and is less familiar with current American writers; expanding on and clarifying some of the answers he gave on the questionnaire; commenting on fiction writing saying "I do believe that there is a vigorous conspiracy among journalists , which emerges as a sort of contempt for fiction-writers, in the mistaken belief that journalism is somehow 'truer'...People don't have much time for fiction. That's a pity, but the great pity is this easy dismissal of invention & imagination, and the loud praise for what is mediocre-dramatized reporting. It leaves us without heroes;" naming "The Recognitions" (Gaddis) and "Pale Fire" (Nabokov) as book he feels have altered the course of fiction, recognizing that "The Recognitions" is not a new book.