Politics & Power Quote by Antonio Tabucchi

Tabucchi draws a hard line between the temptation of the microphone and the discipline of the page. “My job” frames civic scrutiny as labor, not hobby: an ethical assignment with boundaries. The sentence is built on a contrast that looks modest but is quietly combative. To “look at what politics is doing” is a watchdog verb, empirical and ongoing, implying politics as a machine that keeps operating whether or not citizens are paying attention. The second clause refuses the more flattering role of actor: “not be a politician myself.” That “myself” matters. It’s not an abstract denunciation of politics; it’s a personal safeguard against seduction, careerism, and the soft corruption of proximity.

The subtext is a defense of the writer’s authority at a time when authority is constantly being traded for access. Tabucchi, steeped in Portugal’s post-dictatorship memory and Italy’s late-20th-century media-political spectacle, understood how easily public life turns into performance. When politics becomes theater, the writer’s job is not to audition for the cast but to keep the lights on and describe the staging: who’s being silenced, who’s being fed lines, who benefits from the set.

The intent is also tactical. By rejecting the politician’s identity, Tabucchi claims a different kind of legitimacy: the right to criticize without having to campaign, the freedom to be unpopular, the capacity to speak in moral verbs rather than policy bullet points. It’s a statement about independence, but also about method: literature as investigative sensibility, conscience as a form of reportage.