This is your first visit to the Brighton Festival and it seems this year’s themes – democracy, freedom and protest – chime with those of your latest album, Homeland… Political stuff is usually in my work even if I try to keep it out. Typically, if things are going towards the left, I tend to write poetry, if it swings to the right I’m more into writing about politics… now there isn’t really so much difference between the two sides.

It doesn’t seem to matter who we vote for, we get the same policies. I’m a little discouraged.

As an artist, I don’t have a strong feeling art can change the world but it doesn’t stop me from trying. I think it’s great the Festival is exploring the concept of liberty because there isn’t a lot of it to be had these days, unless you consider freedom to choose what you buy liberty.

Which figure do you most admire?

The first person who comes to mind is Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern. I love stories that jump from topic to topic and take a really long time to unfold and also those that are very, very funny. Also, Honore de Balzac – someone who looks at a whole situation like a town [as the writer does in The Jealousies Of A Country Town] and thinks about how it works in great detail. I love this curiosity about people and about the world.

Is there a TV programme you can’t live without?

I don’t watch any TV. I wasn’t allowed to watch it as a kid so I never got into the habit.

I get news from other places.

I do like those sort of episodic series like HBO does so well, but not enough to really bother trying to watch them.

Do you remember the first record you bought? What was it and where did you buy it?

It was this vintage record from the Second World War called Letters From Daddy. It was a really sentimental story record of a guy reading out letters to his children and bombs were going off in the background. I just really loved it.

It seemed like a curiosity and I loved that a record could be a story, it didn’t have to be a song.

I was probably eight and I bought it from an old record shop near my house.

Tell us about any guilty pleasures in your record or DVD collections?

I don’t really have any guilt in that department. I have too many books but I’m not that guilty about it. The trashiest thing I like is probably [Roman satirist] Petronius.

Do you have a favourite film?

I’ve just seen a Chilean film called Nostalgia For The Light and it’s incredible.

It’s partly about telescopes, because Chile is one of the biggest producers, and partly about these women digging around in the dirt for the little bones of their sons who were killed and buried in the Atacama Desert. They’re there with these tiny shovels and then the camera pans back and you see the enormous size of this desert. It’s a long film and it was a bit of challenge to hang in there, but I don’t mind works of art that ask you to do that.

Do you have a favourite book?

That’s probably a book called Nox written by a friend of mine named Anne Carson. It’s the story of the death of her older brother Michael. She’s probably my favourite poet in the world and has written some amazing books. Her most famous is Autobiography Of Red, a verse novel where you’re not sure if she’s writing about a person or just a colour. It’s quite a feat. You’re not really sure what it’s about but you don’t care which is really quite an achievement.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve just finished an Australian book called The Slap [by Christos Tsiolkas] – it’s quite fun. I was in a book store and I always ask the people who work there what customers are buying and what they’ve bought recently because often I trust that more than reviews. They told me about this book. The plot is about a family barbecue where a guy slaps a kid who isn’t his and the reaction of all these different people to the incident. The characters are great.

I don’t know if it’s a good book but I’m reading it really fast!

Tell us about a live experience that sticks in your memory… Young Jean Lee did a play called We’re Gonna Die, at Joe’s Pub in New York recently – she’s an amazing playwright and every time she does something, it’s completely different from the last. Her first play was about teenage Korean girls, the second about middle-class black Americans and this one’s a rock ’n’ roll show.

For some reason, it’s extremely touching and emotional, all done in this very unique way. It was different from anything else I’ve seen recently