As the season of literary festivals gets underway, Howard Jacobson tells us not to be lured by their appearance of being civilized.

"The prevailing tone of sweet concord shouldn't be allowed to disguise the violent nature of creativity", he says.

They're a fiercely competitive business for writers, he believes. "To write is to reconceive the world and only a God, or someone acting like a God, can do that...You don't want some other two-bit deity coming along and bagging the credit for what you've done".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.