The idea that a student can write a sonnet or a novel without having a sound understanding about its history, and where it fits into literature as a whole, seems to me to be manifestly daft.

I've written over 100 short stories. You could say I'm obsessed with short stories.

I always have lots of zany ideas for promotional stuff as publication nears.

I love experimental writing, when it's good, and good examples are much more likely to be found in the short form.

I was interested in the ways that artists responded to totalitarianism - the Czech Jazz Section, Romanian absurdist theatre, Brecht's alienation effect. The anything-goes, anarchic qualities of jazz and Surrealism seemed to offer a way to cross some of the forbidden frontiers of Eastern Europe.

Belgium is a country with a split personality.

What the short story needs above all is for one of the big publishers to get an equivalent series up and running and to support it and promote it.