Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.

My grandfather died in the war, my family went through the war, and it affected my parents in really profound ways. I've always wanted to write about that period - in some ways to digest it for myself, something that defined me but that I didn't go through.

People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.

Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living.

I write from real life. I am an unrepentant eavesdropper and a collector of stories. I record bits of overheard dialogue.

We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about our sons' girlfriends, but our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid. But of course when the time is right, we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband.

I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.