I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality.

Everybody's damaged by something.

I really like to keep my palette small but to be very intense, very myopic.

I read three books a week.

I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.

When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.