Where are you happiest?

Rome; the bush; the bath; Kyoto.

What is your favourite word?

‘Lime’. I’m also fond of ‘Australasia’, with its swirling, romantic weight. And ‘coracle’. And many filthy Elizabethan and Jacobean words that I’m not going to commit to paper here.

Which human quality do you most admire?

Optimism.

Where would you like to have been born?

Where I was – Sydney, Australia. Although I often wish I had working rights in the United States, I like the perspective one has on the world from being born in the south of the Pacific.

What is your favourite book?

I can’t choose just one. Moby-Dick; Anna Karenina; Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain; Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian; Tanizaki’s Secret History of the Lord of Musashi; Blood Meridian; Ragtime; To the Lighthouse; The Tree of Man; Pnin.

And your favourite literary hero and heroine?

Yourcenar’s Hadrian.

What, if anything, impedes your writing?

Self-doubt – always self-doubt.

How old were you when your first book appeared?

Thirty-one.

Of which of your books are you fondest?

I know many writers say they don’t have favourites, but I’m fondest of my second novel, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers (2005) – perhaps because it was the hardest to write, requiring the greatest imaginative leap, but also because I came closest to the economy of language and form I want to find in prose.

In a phrase, how would you characterise your work?

Oh dear. Someone once described my reviewing as ‘meta-critical’, which delighted me: I guess my training in English literature and cultural studies has made me interested in the how and why of stories, as well as stories themselves. This translates into my fiction. I’m interested in writing that looks at itself in process and has some humility about how possible it is to enter transparently into other people’s lives: I’m especially interested in the media through which we see the world, whether this is film, or photography, or architecture.

Who is your favourite author?

Kawabata – today. And I have a very soft spot for Ruskin.

How do you regard publishers?

Well. Though my greatest admiration is for editors.

What do you think of the state of criticism?

The best criticism – and there’s plenty of it around – is a creative act in itself, a kind of parallel writing, that not only traces the genealogy of the work it criticises, but extends its possibilities as well.

If you had your time over again, would you choose to be a writer?

I’m not sure. I’d probably always write. But a big part of me would like to have worked with animals: perhaps I still will. I’m fascinated by other creatures’ completely different way of communicating and existing in the world. Though when I think about it, this isn’t too far removed from what attracts me about writing – I don’t write to understand the familiar, but to approach the unfamiliar.

What do you think of writers’ festivals?

I enjoy the social side of them, and meeting readers. I get a little frustrated by overly decorous presentations, or presentations focused too much on promoting a book; my favourite sessions are the ones closest to wide-ranging, vigorous conversations.

Do you feel artists are valued in our society?

I think it’s double-edged. They’re sometimes revered, and often envied – but also hated, because people overestimate the power they have. I think there is also a tendency to see artists as freeloaders, especially in any economically rationalist assessment; whereas in actual fact they enrich the world greatly, often through volunteer or low-cost labour.

What are you working on now?

Trying to think through the mysterious history of my family’s Chilean branch.