Biographies are no longer written to explain or explore the greatness of the great. They redress balances, explore secret weaknesses, demolish legends.
I hated being a novelist when I was 20 - I had nothing to write about.
I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is.
What I need to write well is a combination of heat, light and solitude.
Literary critics make natural detectives.
I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.