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

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

You create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in your old rooms, the world you've made for yourself ceases to be real. Everything seems to crumble. Anyone who's been sent away to boarding school can understand that.

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.

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

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.

I suppose one should have an integrated personality, but I've never really seen the point.