I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.

There's quite a big gap when it comes to that dual identity of mother and child, or even a pregnant woman, or a nursing woman. It kind of begs the question of that very strong Western idea of the individual self.

I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too.

And, in fact, this is the tale that I would love to write: history is such a romantic place, with its jarveys and urchins and side-buttoned boots. If it would just stay still, I think, and settle down. If it would just stop sliding around in my head.

One of the reasons I write is I like being surprised

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it.