an elevated ideology on tribal people loading them into a helpless insurrection? what lessons have they learned from past experience? these are principally undemocratic. it is the theory of ordinary troubles being called in the crossfire between the state and the accurate one. the troubles due entirely discreet categories as is being made out. to their interests converge, have they learned anything from each other? have they changed each other? the day before i left my mother called. she said with a mother's instinct what this country needs is revolution. an article on the internet says israel's training 30 high-ranking police officers of targeted assassinations to the organization had less. this talk in the press about the hardware that's been bought from israel plays a range finder, thermal imaging equipment and unmanned drones so popular with the u.s. army, perfect weapons to use against the poor. the drive that takes about ten hours through areas known to be invested. these are not careless words. infestation implies disease and pests, disease is must be killed. pests must be exterminated. now rests must be wiped out. when these creeping innocuous ways the language of genocide has entered our vocabulary. to protect the highway security forces have secured a narrow band width of either side but further in it is the large brothers, comrades. i arrived well in times of for my appointment. the first day for sure. i had my camera, my small cocoanut and i wondered if someone was watching me and having a laugh. within minutes, a young boy approached me. he had a cat and a backpack, chuck ret kneal polish on his fingernails, no doubt look, no bananas. are you the one who is going in, he asked me? no, i didn't know what to say. then he took out a note from his pocket and handed it to me that said couldn't find out look. [laughter] and the bananas? i ate them, he said, i got hungry. [laughter] he really was a security threat. [laughter] his backpack said charlie brown, not your ordinary blockade. [laughter] he said his name was monktu but i soon learned it was about to enter people who had many names and flew with identities. it was like a bomb to me, that idea, how not to be stuck with yourself, to be someone else for a while. we walked to the stand only a few minutes away from the temple. it was already crowded and things happen quickly. there were two men of oblix and there was no conversation just a glance of acknowledgment, shifting of body weight, the riding of engines. i had no idea where we were going. we passed the house of the superintendent of police, which i recognized from my last visit. he was a candid man the superintendent of police. and, frankly speaking, this cannot be solved by police or military. the problem with these troubles is they don't understand agreed unless they become greedy there is no hope for us. [laughter] i told my boss remove the force and put atv in every home. everything will be automatically sorted out. in no time at all we were riding out of town. it was a long ride, three hours by my watch a that ended abruptly in the middle of nowhere on an empty road with forests on either side. monktu got off, i did, too. i picked up my backpack and followed the small internal security threat into the forest. it was a beautiful day. the forest was a carpet of gold. in a while we emerged on the white sandy banks of a broad river and was monsoon said this amount was more or less at the center of stream ankle deep easy to wade across. across pakistan. okay ma'am, my boys shoot to kill. i remember that as we began to move. i saw us in the site tiny figures and landscape easy to pick off. but monktu seemed unconcerned and i took my cue from him. on the other bank in a line green shirt that said holix was a slightly older security threat maybe 20. he had a lovely smile, cycle, can with boiled water and many packets of glucose a biscuits from the party for me. we caught our breathitt began to walk again it turned out he was a red herring. the route was almost entirely not cycle. we climbed a steep hills and climbed down the rocky paths along pretty precarious ledges. many couldn't we would generally lifted the cycle and carried it over his head as the lead weight nothing. i began to wonder about his village boy. i discovered much later he could handle every kind of weapon except and lmg he told me cheerfully, that is a light machine gun. 2,000 beautiful men walked with us for about half an hour before the parts diverged. at the sunset the shoulder bags began to crow. they had roosters in than they had taken to the market but hadn't managed to sell. he seems to be able to see in the dark. i had to use my torch. the crickets start and there is an orchestra sound over us. i longed to look up at this guy but i dare not. i have to keep my eyes on the ground one step at a time concentrating. i heard dogs but i can't tell how far away they are. the terrain flattens out. i still what get this guy. it makes me ecstatic. i hope it will stop soon. soon, he says, but it turns out to be more than an hour. i see the silhouette of enormous trees when br arrived. the village seems spacious, the house as far away from each other. the house we enter is beautiful. there is a fire and some people sitting around. more people outside in the dark. i can't tell how many. i can just about make them out. a moment goes around. la salam comrade, salute, conrad. la salam, i said, but i'm beyond a tired. the leedy of the house calls me inside and gives me chicken cooked in green beans and fried royce. fabulous. her baby is asleep next to me her sulfur anklets gleaming in the firelight. after dinner i unzipped my sleeping bag. it is a strange interest of sound the big zip. some one of its on the radio. bbc hindu service. the church of england has withdrawn funds from the project site and environmental degradation and rights violations of the tribe. i can hear cowbells shuffling, all is well with the world. my eyes closed. we are up at five and on the move by six. another couple of hours as a family of tree is watching over it like a clutch of huge benevolent god's. sweet buster to imminent. but at 11 the sun is high and walking is less fun. we stopped at a village for lunch. chalu seems to know the people in the house, a beautiful girl flirts with him, looks a little shy maybe because i am around. the lunch is for all papaya with red royce and red chili powder. we are going to wait for this on to lose some of its sheet before we start walking again. we take a nap in a little gazebo. there is a spare beauty about the place. everything is clean and necessary, no clutter. a black hen. up and down the wall, a bamboo stabilizes the rafters of the patch roofs and doubles as a storage rack. there is a grass bloom, two drums, a woven basket, a broken umbrella and a stack of flat and empty cardboard boxes. something catches my eye. i need my spectacles and here is what is printed on the cardboard. ideal power 90 high energy motion explosive class ii sd-cat-zz. we start walking in about 2:00 in the village we will meet dee dee, a sister comrade who knows the next step of the journey. chadu thousand. there is an economy of information, too. nobody is supposed to know everything. when we reach the village dee dee isn't there. there is no news of her and for the first time i see a little cloud of worry saddling over chadu and a big one over me. i don't know what the system of communication are but what if they have gone wrong? we are outside of the school building. a little way out of the village. why the government of which schools were built like concrete bastions with steel shutters for windows and sliding the the to sliding steel doors? why not like the village houses with mud and patch? because they double as barracks and bunkers. in the villages, chandu says, schools are like this. and he scratches a building plant with a trade in the years. three octagon's attached to each other like a honeycomb so they can fire in all directions. he draws a rose to illustrate his point like a graphic of a wagon wheel. there are no teachers in any of the schools, chandu says. they've all run away. or have you chased them away? no, we only chase police. but why should teachers come to the jungle when they get their salaries sitting at home? the good point. he informs me that this is a new area, the party's elite until recently. about 20 young people to arrive, girls and boys in their teens and early 20s. chandu explains this is this a leche level militia. the lowest rung of the maoist military hierarchy. i've never seen anyone like him before. the order stand lungis, some of them and olive green fatigues. the boys wear jewelry and hit year. every one of them has a muzzle loading rifle what is called a press mosh. some also have knives, axes, bow and arrow. one bayway carries a motor fashioned out of a heavy 3-foot pipe filled with gunpowder and shrapnel and ready to be fired. it makes a big blaze but it can only be used once. still, it scares the police, they say. though war doesn't seem to be most on their mind perhaps their area is outside of the range of the dreaded government sponsored people's militia that has burned hundreds of villages and killed hundreds of people it remains the purification hunt. they just finished a day's work helping to build fencing around some villages, village houses to keep the boats out of the field. they are full of fun and curiosity. the girls confident and easy with the blaze. i have a sense of this sort of thing and i am impressed. their job, chandu, says is to patrol and protect a group of four or five villages and held in the fields, clean wells or repair houses doing what it is needed. still, no dee dee. after dinner, without much talk everybody falls in hot line clearly we are moving. everything moves with us. the vegetables, the pots and pans. we leave the school compound and walking single file into the forest. in less than half an hour we arrive where we are going to sleep. there is absolutely no malaise. within minutes everybody has spread their blue plastic sheets, the ubiquitous jolie with which there would be no revolution. chandu and monktu share one and spread one out for me to read the find me the best place by the best rock. chandu says he sent a message to dee dee and if she gets it she will be here first thing in the morning. if she gets it. it's the most beautiful room i have slept in in a long time. my private suite in a thousand star hotel. i'm surrounded by these strange beautiful children with a very curious r salles. are they all going to die? is the jungle warfare training school passed on the highway for them and the helicopter gunships, the imaging and laser range finders? why must they die? what four? to turn all of this into a mine? i remember my visit to the open cast mines. there was forests there and children like these. but now the land is like a rall red wound, red dust fills your nostrils, the water is fred claire is read, the people are red, their lungs and their hair or raid. all-day and all-night the tracks rumble through their villages, bumper-to-bumper, thousands and thousands of trucks taking all to the port from where it will go to china. there it will turn into cars and smoke and certain cities that spring up overnight. to a growth rate that leaves economists breathless, into weapons to make war. everyone is asleep except for the centuries who take one and half hour shifts. finally i could look at the stars. when i was a child growing up on the banks of the miniature river i used to think of the crickets -- i used to think that the sound of the crickets, which always started up at twilight, was the sound of the stars roughing up, getting ready to shine. i am surprised at how much love being here. there is no where else in the world that i would rather be. who should i be to night? conrad under the stars. maybe dee dee will come tomorrow. they arrive in the early afternoon. i can see them from a distance about 15 of them in olive green and uniforms running towards us, even from a distance from the way they run i can tell they are the heavy hitters, the people's revolutionary army for home laser-guided rifles, for whom the counterterrorism and jungle warfare training college. they carry cereus rifles, ak-47s. the leader of the squad has been with the party since he was nine. he is extremely apologetic and upset. there is a major miscommunication, he says, again and again, which usually never happens. he wants to leave immediately because people in the camp were waiting and were worried. i looked around at the camp. we were leaving before we left. there are no signs that so many people had camped here except for some ash where the fire had been. i cannot believe this army. as far as consumption goes, gandhian and a lighter carbon footprint and any climate change evangelist. but for now it even has a gandhian approach to sabotage. before a police vehicle is born, for example, it is stripped down and every part is cannibalized. the steering wheel is straightened out and made into a rifle barrel. the upholstery strip and used for ammunition pouches, the battery for solar charging. the instructions for the hike that captured vehicles should be buried and not cremated so they can be resurrected when needed. should i write a play, i wonder, bundy did your gun -- ghandi get your gun, or will i be lynched. [laughter] so that is just the beginning. [applause] >> thank you. there are microphones here if you would like to ask a question unless you are really questionless. >> yes. >> i would like to know do you still have the strong desire to write fiction? how large is your staff and are you afraid for your life constantly? >> no i'm not afraid for my life because when you meet the kind of people you meet in india and the kind of battles that are being fought, once you start to being afraid you cripple yourself. you just have to -- i am not a person that is that interested in the being brave or being a martyr. it doesn't attract me. so i just think it's important to understand the kind of society that we live in, to push as far as you can commit to be strategic. obviously made -- door calculations me go wrong but the ideal, martyrdom was not an ideal and bravery is for horses. [laughter] but your question about fiction, you know, i do feel sometimes that the real price that i have paid for what i have been doing the last ten years is having to write things i don't necessarily -- i mean, you know i am a little naughtier than that. there is responsibility. but say this piece now, actually it is so fascinating when you go into that forest and everybody is a fictional character. they don't have names, i don't know who they are. we begin such a great friends but i don't know who they are. they keep changing their names, they take the names of their dead comrades. sometimes three people have the same name. so, if that is not fiction, what is? said these decisions that we tend to make some times are not really accurate. so i think i probably come to a stage where in that forest my nonfiction and fiction were married in a little ceremony. [laughter] >> my other question was how big is your staff? it's not just you, is it? >> i don't have any staff, i am a mobile republic. [laughter] >> thank you. it is an honor to be able to hear you. i have a question about water. it is a kind of fury of mind. many years ago my sons were in love with this tv show, what's the name of the show cracks seinfeld, they love seinfeld. and i noticed that seinfeld would go into his refrigerator and get a bottle of water when he wanted a drink of water and i thought i was very curious and that was many years ago. but my question is what is your understanding of how multinational corporations commandeer walker? does the government give the water to these corporations? i mean, how does that work? thank you. >> is a lot of the time i have spent following and writing about big dams and one of the things they do is steal from the poor and give it to the rich and for -- since the end of 1989 there has been a huge movement and nonviolent gandhi and movement around the dams on a river and of course that movement was more or less sidelined and the dams were built, and now all of that water is being given -- all of these dams are built in india in the name of the poor and the irrigation but then the minute they control the water which is what the dams do they give it to the corporates, and it's not just dams of course it is even the mining of the groundwater that isn't any kind of regime or the mining of ground water. but really as many people say now the big war of the future are likely to be fought over water and the privatization of water is a kind of unbelievable thing to me that you can actually deny people who can't afford to pay for water and given it to coca-cola or whoever >> you spoke and write so eloquently tonight about the struggles of this envisioned people in india, and in doing so it seemed to me that he were sympathizing with the need to act violently in order to accomplish their goals and of course the struggles they are going through are played out in numerous forms all over the world as we know and probably will for some time and yet we always associate about don ghandi get your gun to be curious what your thought of the nonviolent protests and also of the role of the media and the revolution that we've seen in the last decade or so in order to protect the fangs that are so impassioned to do over the last several years. >> well, actually i must admit negative views have changed over the past few years because i have seen how governments have completely marked, marginalized and discarded non-violent movements. but this is not to say that i am sitting all movements should be violent but when i went into this forest negative covered operates over there is that of the police moving off 1,000 they go into the forest and might and surrounding village and they capture people who cannot in the morning and use them as human shields and go and and then just the levels of violence they are prepared to perpetrate are crazy and what are you supposed to do in the middle of a jungle? because gandhian protest is like a very effective political theater if it has an audience. but how are people who are starving all ready to go on hunger strike? how are people who have no money to boycott foreign goods are not paid their taxes. how are people who have nothing? these are people who have already been marginalized and are outside of society. there is no money or food or hospitals, no schools. nobody is listening. they cannot sit there in the middle of a forest and go on hunger strike. as easy for the czars of liberalism to say there is no alternative as they keep telling us. the point is now these people are saying you tell us an alternative resistance policy. if you don't have an alternative neither do we. and my singing is if you cannot leave in the mountain, if you cannot leave the iron ore in the floor or the water in the reverse, not every river and not every mountain but their rivers and their mountains because these are not people who need aluminum and these are not people who need iron ore. they learn to live in that forest for a millennium. so if you can't leave that on your nor in the floor and if you can't leave the mountain and please don't preached morality to the victims of your war. [applause] >> thanks for such a lovely reading. i read on the back of your book that you live in delhi, and curious of is this piece you just read from you said that had been published online. >> it's been published in a magazine called out look and it's also online. >> so what i wondered is living in delhi and now that this piece is public, do you feel tension walking around their? because i certainly would. [laughter] i just wondered, like, how that works or not. >> well, the thing is that india, urban india has become a very ugly place. i haven't had a lot of -- i could choose what i wanted to read to you but basically in 1989 when capitalism and one against the soviet communism and the mountains of afghanistan everything in india change because india we aligned itself, and sometimes the way i see that is the indian government opened two blocks, one with a lot of the 16th century mosque and they said this -- the hindu right began to campaign sitting from mosques should be demolished. and the other block was of the market to international finance, and both of these led to the unleashing of two kinds of fundamentalism's, market fundamentalism and hindu fundamentalism. both on a kind of fascism and those of us who have anything to say about the third thing for both things have grown up on a diet of such an insult and hostility that now if it doesn't have and we miss it. [laughter] you feel like why didn't you insult me? am i doing something wrong? it has become a very dangerous place. but, you know, it is a very crafty government, so attack comes on different people tactically or differently so if you are a village you get picked up and killed. if they can call you a maoist we have this traditional account of killing where the summary execution and the army people who do it either to muslims many times in kashmir were the northeastern states are now in the affected areas, they are only given bravery awards for so many killing. but with people like me, i fink think i would be more careful about doing something like that i hope. [laughter] but it is a different kind of tactic that is employed. but for example this piece, i know the people who are probably the most upset by it are the mainstream parliamentary left in the state who are also battling maoist in their own state and they are not any longer the left, they lost the right to call themselves communist but they are upset and officious but the thing is as i said to someone else there is a huge numbers of people that engage in this battle. there are also incredible networks of solidarity and the really frightening thing is the media. there are news channel switch will go after some of us individually. the stake me out like i am a dangerous criminal to be a very vicious trying to wind their audience up about certain individuals. it's become a very ugly place. >> thank you. >> don't throw anything at me because maoism is even on a popular still in this country. the third world movement is curious about something. based on your experiences in the past few weeks where do you goi? is it going in the direction of 1945 to 1949 with the negotiations between mao leading to the factory in china or is it going more to the direction of 2006 nepal where you basically have the top leadership of the revolution joining the government being a part of the democracy that you essentially decry in your latest book. what do you think about that? >> well, actually the maoist movement has a long and interesting history as i can briefly hint to that and it's hard to -- it is almost entirely now a movement in sight of the forest and a movement of indigenous people. it has not managed to survive outside the forest, not even in rural areas in the plans. so right now it has its back against a wall and a sense but it is very entrenched in the areas where like say this area where i traveled, but it's a very precarious situation because if you've read this piece there is a lot of -- there is this question of how easily a people's army can turn on the people when it doesn't need right now it is willing the people but it can turn into a bitter marriage at any time and the other danger is right now at least in some areas it is a very disciplined movement and other areas it's not. it is long but in discipline and right now almost all of the weapons they have far weapons they snatched from the police, weapons supposed to be used against them. but if the assault continues it is possible outside forces could decide to exploit the situation and poor weapons and which could be quite a disaster so i don't know how to answer the question more than this. i don't think there are any sureties. >> welcome to the northwest. i'm wondering if you have noted that all five of the regions where the u.s. is waging counter insurgency war right now the regions within afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, yemen, somalia are being increasingly described in the area as tribal regions and past generations, the tribal lands of the philippines and before that tribal regions of north america. is it all just about corporate access to natural resources or is it also about tribal people having forms of social organizations that are not completely determined by capitalism and capitalism can't stand anything less than total control? >> i think it is both things. it's very, very interesting that at least in asia if you look at afghanistan, waziristan, the northwest front provinces, northeastern states of india and this entire belt which i've been talking about it is the tribal regions that are up, risen up in revolt in afghanistan that rebellion is taking the form of radical islam and the radical communism. but the assault on them is for the same reason. it is to control you politically as well as could be the control and capture resources. it is a corporate attack. and it is possible in those areas because they have an imagination outside this bar coded capitalist society that everybody else lives in and that is the one thing about india is still wonderful that there is a wilderness still there. there is an imagination of sight of this and that is why there is a huge resistance, not just the maoist with a whole band width of resistance that has managed for quite a few years now to stall the corporate onslaught they were signed in 2005 and those ceos are still waiting in their airlines wondering when their mountains are going to turn into money. so i think that what is interesting for me is the fact that i don't expect an alternative to come out of an imagination that is obviously created the problem in the first place. but if we can somehow tell ourselves that it's the wrong thing to do to exterminate those who have the wisdom and an imagination that might suggest through, then you have the beginning of what might be a kind of domino effect. me to do with the site you have. you can't to trade on the futures market because there may be no future. >> thank you. >> at the risk of offending your modesty many from the middle east and from the middle east consider you and international treasurer. [applause] >> as long as i don't start believing that. [laughter] never believe the publicity. >> when i was growing up, india was always a model, model for democracy, model for women's rights because gandhi was a prime minister and what we found out later on is that democracy without liberty is meaningless. so my question is from you actually i have two questions. one is what is to be done? at [laughter] [laughter] i would like to touch it is possible touch the issue of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty >> those are very both very unfair questions. [laughter] i think one real problem is what is to be done sometimes becomes such a huge question that it immobilizes us like there isn't a solution that's going to work for the whole world, but for me, the way i see it is that for instance this battle that is being fought in the forest of india i think that if -- if the people in this forest can win a pushback it would give hope to many people, and not just hope because someone is defeated because i don't think that would be a defeat. i think defeat would be a victory even for those who are prosecuting this war. so, i am not the kind of person who has this kind of sort of monolithic vision of a broad spectrum solution for everything but i believe that there are battles being fought in certain places now that are crucial to be will three imagine the meaning of happiness, to be able to the imagined the meaning of satisfaction. we need to actually win a a philosophical battle before we can win anything on the ground. and i think that in some ways the poorest people are the most hopeful. it's easy for middle class people to lose hope but the people who don't -- some people don't have an alternative but to hope and align yourself with them is one of the things to be done, to leave the box site in the mountain with one of the things to be done. about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, well, it's a lot of bureaucracy last time i was in america i was invited to be on the charlie rose show and as soon as he came and i knew that there was a lot of hostility there and he said do you believe that india should have nuclear weapons? i said no, i don't believe india should have nuclear weapons. i don't believe u.s. should have nuclear weapons. [applause] and i don't believe that israel should have nuclear weapons. [applause] so he said that was not my question, my question was -- [laughter] do you believe that india should have nuclear weapons, so i sit in the same tone of voice i don't think that india should have nuclear weapons nor should the u.s. or israel, and it went on about five minutes or ten minutes. and eventually they never showed the program. [laughter] but, so the point is i don't understand how much should we set it to the language of imperial bullying? you read "the new york times" today president obama goes and wags his finger at hamid karzai and says we are very disappointed with you or something. [laughter] who are you? of [laughter] [applause] it's a kind of real politic which i think some of us should stay out of, you know, and keep the bar at what we think of as a moral position which is all nuclear weapons are a course and of course will lead us to the edge of the press this unless we get rid of them. but the bargaining has a lot to do with what country has what kind of power. now in india the government is buying sort of discarded nuclear reactors from here and other places and allowing them to sign indemnities said that if there is gyroball there will be a lively. [laughter] >> we will do to more questions so we can conclude this part and after the questions, arunhati, we will have a last portion of reading. so this line, we will do this gentleman and then you and those of you in line with questions afterwards in the line for books can chat with her a little bit. thank you. >> hello. i thought after the last couple of questions are put to the kindness of asking something much less global. the apollo was a major event in my life because it made me think what is living a pretty ordinary life on this continent day-to-day made me come% in defense like that and i was wondering if you could get a little information about whether or not the indian government and the american government i know that union has it had done anything at all to indicate to the damages of that event. >> know they have not come at the have not. and the people still are struggling, they are still on hunger strike asking for the compensation. all of that is still going on. and meanwhile, union carbide has returned as dow chemical's being tainted by the government including the communist party trying to set up some kind of a hub. so to answer your question nothing at all has been done. that is why the nuclear liability bill, they are lessons how to limit the liability in case there is an accident. >> this will be the last question. >> the more i listen to what is happening to citizens and their governments the more i recognize that the people everywhere are in the san boat to the elite and their government and the eda to around the world. the united states and india kind of have a inverse relationship. we are a an employer on its way down and hear in this country we know that the cost of the war is sinking everybody and we are looking at the cost of war here in washington state we've paid 22 billion already for iraq and afghanistan. what is the conversation in india about the cost of war? india is among the top five in porter's of armament. how are people -- are the people they're able to push back at all and what is that conversation about the cost of the war and empire and armament? >> it's a jury good question, and one of the huge holes in what we haven't talked about today is the war in cashmere that india has been waiting in some ways since 1948, but very explicitly since 1989 where the u.s. has 180,000 troops in iraq india has more than half a million troops in kashmir. and armed soldier for every 20 civilians. and, you know, i often say there's so much criticism of the u.s. and the u.s. government policies and foreign policy and very often people omit to make a distinction between people and their governments and maybe in the democracies eletes are fused with the government but then there are obviously people who totally disagree with with the governments are doing. but in america, you have so many people whom have been conscientious objectors or people who have refused to fight. but i don't know of a single one in india if there is a war against pakistan or if it is about kashmir, you can count the pimple on your fingers who will object and we are actually now living through a kind of nationalism which has become so painful because whether it is coca-cola or air conditioners or cars mosquito repellent the oil is sold to you back in the national flag. it is a very difficult time now to deal with things and yet as i said there are people in india who understood what is going on a long time ago so there are resistance movement which are very entrenched. what what the government does in indy 500 of their it's like 1947 the minute india became an independent country it became a colonial power, it began to anex land and use military intervention to sort of political trouble. so from 1947 if you look at what it did with its own borders which are marked out by the british, the land, kashmir, panjab, all of these are military interventions and today the way it functions is will send the cards to kashmir and [inaudible] -- it's just like within its borders of the case like a colonial power, and a lot of the weaponry i suspect is going to be used against us to push through these policies, these economic policies it needs to become a mother tries to police state -- militarize police state. [applause] >> arunhati writes on political issues and was awarded the sydney peace prize in may of 2004 for her work in social campaigns and the efficacy of nonviolence. for more information, visit haymarketbooks.org. this is the cover of a soon-to-be released biography of justice john paul stevens, and it's being produced by northern illinois press. sarah is here representing the publisher and you might be one of the happiest publishers and exhibited at the organization of american historians because we just learned today justice stevens as anticipated his announced retirement. what does this mean for your book? >> everyone at illinois university press is excited about this book. it is really a coincidence with ideal timing this book has been in production and being researched and written for more than a decade. so to have the publication of what was already a very good book coincide with the retirement is very timely, greatly appreciated by the press and we are thrilled to have such a terrific book coming out in a timely fashion. >> will you tell me about the authors warren hart and machine shipment? >> bill is a journalist with more than 30 years experience most at "the chicago tribune." he is a terrific writer and the book is written in a wonderful journalistic style with a lot of clarity and a lot of punch and jean jean schlickman is a legislator in illinois and he had access to a lot of the very high-profile people that were interviewed for this book and they make a great team. >> did justice stevens know about it and cooperate at all? >> yes, i wouldn't put a big sticker that says authorized biography but he did sit for interviews with authors and was aware of the project and actually allowed us to take some photographs of some interesting trophies in his office for example he has a hole in one golf trophy that will appear in the interior of the book. and he also kind of gave his blessing to the authors interviewing people close to him, the people closest to him are loyal to him so they would never have spoken to the authors without his say so so we were able to have access to his family members, friends, former clerks, a lot of people with his blessing. >> you suggested was ten years in the making. why so long? >> the authors have simply been an astounding amount of research. the book starts with stevens' family growing it in chicago and the correct decision regarding campaign financing so the scope of the story they are telling is for the in depth and the number of sources and research they have done is really impressive. they spoke with everyone from stevens' brother, some of stevens' children, people who worked with stevens' when he was a lawyer and judge in chicago. president ford, when he was still with us, who appointed stevens, donald rumsfeld instrumental in having him appointed, former clerks and ruth bader ginsburg. >> and so the number of people they interviewed required tremendous amount of time and research and that is how it ended up to ten years. >> and what kind of competition do you have in this space? she is, we should note for the audience, he is 90-years-old, the ljungqvist serving justice. have there been other works on his career? >> there have been other books that have touched on stevens. there's a good book that looks at a very specific part of his judicial career but nothing that is a true biography. and this book really personalized stevens. he's a man beloved by the people who know him so in addition to covering his very important work and his influential professional life it also presents entertaining anecdotes about his personal life and stories from the people who know him best and let him the most so this is the most complete look at stevens, the man, that is right now and i can't imagine anything that is rushed to print right now could match it in scope. >> what is the sale date? >> be on sale date is may 1st. >> thanks for talking with us to read the book is john paul stevens and independent life, and we are talking with publisher number illinois press sara hoerdeman found out that he will be stepping down from term. thank you. >> thank you. ..