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

There has been corruption in the Belgian civil service and at government level for decades. The Royal family do what they can to hold things together, and they don't do a bad job.

I never know exactly where I'm going with a story, whether it's a short story or a novel. If I did I'd soon grow bored of it. The fun, for me, is in the finding out and the making sense of it.

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.

I have no patience with up-themselves authors who complain about having to trail round a few bookshops signing stock.

Belgium is a country with a split personality.

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