Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

Grief-stricken. Stricken is right; it is as though you had been felled. Knocked to the ground; pitched out of life and into something else.

I didn't write anything until I was well over 30.

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

the days of our lives vanish utterly, more insubstantial than if they had been invented. Fiction can seem more enduring than reality.

Every novel generates its own climate, when you get going.