I do believe in God.

When I grew up in Tasmania, you thought that London was home. You waited to go to England as soon as you graduated, in my case on a ship bound for London via Genoa.

I've never set a book in Europe. I've lived in Europe three times, but somehow or other it wasn't the experience that engaged me in that way.

I was completely devoted to reading and books from the age of seven. It took until I was 18 to have the confidence to write poetry.

I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never history that's the main event of my books. It's my characters.

I don't believe novels should carry an obvious message. I don't want to write characters you can immediately say are good or bad; as in life, most people are a mixture.

Poetry was the first step, and from the age of 18, there was nothing else I wanted to do.

Basically, it comes down to this: do you believe in God, or don't you believe in God.

Writers to some extent are childish, and it's at the childish level that one really engages with any experience. What really moves you is at the very personal, childish level of the imagination. My business is the imagination, and my imagination is engaged by Asia.

I think the greatest reward you get as a writer is finding that people who are reasonably receptive and intelligent have liked your book.