I 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.

I am interested in power and in the idea of one country exerting power over another. The Soviets took this to an extreme.

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

I'm not trying to write cinematic novels, but I have been told several times that my style is cinematic.

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.

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.

Belgium is a country with a split personality.