I followed the launch of the library with Margaret Atwood and then David Mitchell. I just sat quietly at home secretly envying them. Then just over a month ago she asked me if I would like to be the third author to join the library.

All authors secretly hope that their works will be read in 100 years' time and 200 years, and that they will somehow survive into the future.

Paul Beatty for "The Sellout" sounds like a relevant story for our times. It's playful, uses deep thought and seems to be taking advantage of everything literature can do when tackling difficult issues.

I usually leave Reykavik for two to three weeks to go to the South Coast of Iceland where I have a small fisherman's hut from the beginning of the last century. That's where I sit down and do the actual writing. I might write for 16 hours a day or something. That's how it happens.

Bjork is one of my oldest friends so we share the friendship and common roots. That is what we build on when we work together.

What literature brings to our times is always the fact that literature refuses to bring any simple or easy answers.

The option is always on the table. When we [with Bjork] were starting as creative kids in the Eighties, we found each other. I was 19, she was 16 and a friendship was made.