What is your favourite music?

Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Well, it’s actually ‘America’ from West Side Story, but I’d better not put that.

And your favourite book?

For excitement, pleasure, and profundity, The Oxford Thesaurus of English, although I’m still very fond of Anna Karenina.

Who is your favourite author?

I am fickle. This year I am very taken with E.M. Forster (again), but Nikolai Gogol and Anton Chekhov are enduring loves.

And your favourite literary hero and heroine?

Uncle Vanya and Anna Karenina.

Name an early literary idol or influence whom you no longer admire.

Dostoevsky.

How old were you when your first book appeared?

I was fifty when my first literary title, A Mother’s Disgrace, appeared. Before that there were a few academic books, but nobody read them.

What, if anything, impedes your writing?

I’m not good at narrative thrust.

How do you regard publishers?

A publisher who loves you and gives you a great editor and a fantastic publicist is worth her weight in gold.

What do you think of the state of criticism?

This is not the age of criticism. Theory killed criticism. This is the age of reviewing and commentary.

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

I didn’t choose to be a writer this time around, I ended up a writer. You can choose to write, but I don’t think you can choose to be a writer. I can’t think of a better life.

What do you think of writers’ festivals?

To my mind, the capital city festivals have largely become trade fairs at which writers must perform in order to sell books for their publishers. Since most of us are not performers, these events are extremely stressful. We rarely meet other writers at festivals in any meaningful way nowadays, as we once did – we’re flown in and quickly flown out again to minimise costs. The public, however, probably takes great pleasure in them. Where else do you have this sort of unscripted exchange of ideas?

Do you feel artists are valued in our society?

Not exactly valued. If they were valued, society would have come up with a way to assure them of a livelihood, instead of just tossing them the odd prize, grant, or tutorship to squabble over. I think society expects artists to be its conscience, but thinks it would be indelicate to discuss a fee. And for reasons it can’t quite remember, it still finds artists vaguely glamorous, even worth looking up to, as the peasantry once found bishops.

What are you working on now?

Nothing at all. Should I be?