Novelist Stephen King may write scary stories, but he doesn’t necessarily want them to come true.
The horror author appeared on US talk show The View on Wednesday to discuss his latest book, The Institute, which is about a group of children with special powers who are kept captive for experiments.
“When I started this book, I just wanted to write a story about defenceless children who were locked up and had to kind of band together in order to fight these cruel adults that are performing tests on them,” he told the show’s co-hosts.
Stephen said his book was initially inspired by the shocking CIA experiments in the early 1950s, as well as “the horrible experiments that were performed on people in the camps during World War II”.
But when news surfaced about the dire conditions that migrant children were facing in detention facilities, he started seeing parallels between his novel and President Donald Trump’s border policy.
“Sometimes, life comes along and imitates art instead of the other way around,” King said. “As I was rewriting this book, all at once I find out we’re locking little kids up in cages on the border, and I’m thinking to myself, this is like my book.”
Stephen King is currently in the spotlight thanks to the release of It: Chapter Two, based on his 1986 novel.
The film serves as a sequel to 2017′s It, which was based on the first half of Stephen’s book, which centres around the “Losers Club” and their attempts to take down the terrifying Pennywise, a clown who preys on their innermost fears.
Watch Stephen King’s complete interview on The View below: