There Comes A Point When

I Grew Up In Britain Before It Became A Multicultural Place, So In Many Ways I Have A Nostalgia For An England That's Vanished - The England Of My Childhood Has Actually Disappeared.

People Aren't Quite Sure What It Means When A Book Is A Booker Prize Winner. They're Not Quite Sure What Is Being Recommended, What Literary Values It Stands For, Because Every Year It Stands For Something Different.

I Actually Dislike, More Than Many People, Working Through Literary Allusion. I Just Feel That There's Something A Bit Snobbish Or Elitist About That. I Don't Like It As A Reader, When I'm Reading Something. It's Not Just The Elitism Of It; It Jolts Me Out Of The Mode In Which I'm Reading. I've Immersed Myself In The World And Then When The Light Goes On I'm Supposed To Be Making Some Kind Of Literary Comparison To Another Text. I Find I'm Pulled Out Of My Kind Of Fictional World, I'm Asked To Use My Brain In A Different Kind Of Way. I Don't Like That.

I Saw A New World Coming Rapidly. More Scientific, Efficient, Yes. More Cures For The Old Sicknesses. Very Good. But A Harsh, Cruel, World. And I Saw A Little Girl, Her Eyes Tightly Closed, Holding To Her Breast The Old Kind World, One That She Knew In Her Heart Could Not Remain, And She Was Holding It And Pleading, Never To Let Her Go.

When I See Films Made From Books, I Make A Huge Effort Not To Remember The Book. It's Important To See The Film As A Film.