The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form.

Born in Jerusalem, Wadie Said went from being a dragoman to a salesman in the United States and thence to a hugely successful businessman in Egypt.

The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.

I didn't think I had anything particular to say, but I thought I might have something to say to children.

I rather like getting away from fiction.

I'm now an agnostic but I grew up on the King James version, which I'm eternally grateful for.

The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.