John Updike knows that parts of his newest book about a poor black boy and a rich white girl falling in love might be considered offensive.

"You can't write out of fear of offending anybody. You have to push your vision," Updike says in Mirabella magazine."I don't think of myself as racist. Down deep - who knows? Yeah, the book might be deemed offensive," Updike continues. "I suppose we should all confront our racist feelings."

"Brazil," due out in May, is about how a boy from the slums of Rio de Janiero and a girl from a convent put aside their racial differences in the name of love.

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