 George Steiner , literary critic for The New Yorker and The New York Times , had written about the Holocaust in some of his previous books , including <unk> <unk> ( 1964 ) , Language and Silence ( 1967 ) and In <unk> 's Castle ( 1971 ) . Many of the ideas Steiner expresses in The Portage to San <unk> of <unk> were reworked from these earlier works . Steiner told New York Times editor D. J. R. <unk> that this book arose out of his lifelong work on language . " Central to everything I am and believe and have written is my <unk> ... that you can use human speech both to <unk> , to love , to build , to forgive and also to torture , to hate , to destroy and to <unk> . " 
