I'm an atheist. I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an and I refute them.

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.

We must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives.

The flashbacks are parallel for me. You experience two storylines at the same time, and I'm not switching from one time to another.

I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enable you to live.

I think the point about ActionAid is what it's asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.

If you're actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you'll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.