If A Man Is To Lose His

You Go On. You Set One Foot In Front Of The Other, And If A Thin Voice Cries Out, Somewhere Behind You, You Pretend Not To Hear, And Keep Going.

You Can't Write About The Past And Ignore Religion. It Was Such A Fundamental, Mind-shaping, Driving Force For Pre-modern Societies. I'm Very Interested In What Religion Does To Us - Its Capacity To Create Love And Empathy Or Hatred And Violence.

I Think Probably The Scaredest I've Ever Been Was In Somalia. I Arrived There When The Episode That Became Known As 'black Hawk Down' Was Still Taking Place. The Americans Were Still Pinned Down Under Fire. And Everybody Else Was Basically Going The Other Way, And I Was The Only One Putting My Hand Up For A Flight In.

They Say The Lord's Day Is A Day Of Rest, But Those Who Preach This Generally Are Not Women.

Because I Worked As A Newspaper Reporter For About 14 Years Before Attempting My First Novel, I Learned To Write Under Almost Any Circumstances- By Candle Light, In Longhand, In African Villages Where There Was No Power, Under Shelling In Kurdistan.