It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.

I write in the novel's afterword that our recent wars "finish not with victory or defeat but with a calendar draw-down date and a presumption that we shall never be reconciled with the enemy".

Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive

Would we be the heroes or the cowards of the piece? Would we follow orders or stick to our principles, if those two things ever conflicted? Would we be the brave ones who still found the capacity for love - and for laughter - even while we were terrified?

I think, in common with a lot of novelists, I wasn't the most athletic guy at school.

I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.

So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.