Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

I've never put Northern Ireland into a novel because it's not my territory. I come from the South, so my imaginative territory is very much the Republic of Ireland rather than the North. Even though, if I wrote a novel about the North, it might sell more.

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

As I settled down to sleep in that new bed in the dark city, I saw that it was too late now, too late for everything. I would not be given a second chance. In the hours when I woke, I have to tell you that this struck me almost with relief.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to find new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.