But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels.

I feel like "Not For Long" was one for me just because I got to work with two people that I looked up to...

In the past members of my family on both my mother's and father's side have fought in the war, in the first and second World Wars. Unfortunately, they're dead and I wasn't able to speak to them, but that was in our family history too.

I think you have to be very careful getting the balance right if you're going to talk about grand themes like war, death and nationhood. You need to use the right language or don't do it at all.

I think that's always very valuable: to keep the mind open to receiving all sorts of information, which can then be used in my work, but also just as a human being.

You go back and look at some of the ancient writings that exist throughout the world about wars and it's the same; the human beings' articulation of events is the same. That really fascinated me.