I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn't know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun.

I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.

“One Minus One’”and “Barcelona, 1975” are more or less autobiographical.

Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure.

Writer's block! It doesn't exist. You just long for ideas to go away so you have an idea of peace.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.

All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.