I am interested in power and in the idea of one country exerting power over another. The Soviets took this to an extreme.
Nicholas RoyleI have no patience with up-themselves authors who complain about having to trail round a few bookshops signing stock.
Nicholas RoyleI only like naturalistic stories. I love short, fantastic stories that cast a spell over the reader, that transport you instantly to another place with another set of rules, somewhere imagined by someone else.
Nicholas RoyleThe short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.
Nicholas RoyleI was particularly drawn to Berlin because of its literal, concrete division. Two halves making a whole, or two entities that were altered doubles of each other? Twins that had been separated and kept in neighbouring houses and raised according to different sets of rules as a social experiment? It was irresistible as a metaphor for division in the mind, for a split personality.
Nicholas Royle