The inspirations behind my Booker-longlisted book

I’ve wanted to write this novel for many years, but some books have a long gestation period. It’s the story of a very ordinary family that in some ways resembles my own, and I needed time to work out how best to tell it.

The book that made me fall in love with reading

I was about 12 or 13 when I read Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which propelled me from the world of childhood reading into what I recognised as the kind of reading I’d want to do for the rest of my life – books that dealt with the complex struggles of the human experience.

The book that made me want to become a writer

Toni Morrison’s Beloved, because it was a book I dreamed of emulating, knowing that I could never match its greatness. I still feel the same about both the writer and book now.

The book I read again and again 

I’m currently re-reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, which is meant to be read repeatedly; meant to be savoured and grappled with; meant to inspire both wonder and at times boredom, but mainly, as the years go by, wonder. It’s a very long work and I’m only on my second reading in as many decades, but yes, my memory of characters and scenes changes in a magical way, which isn’t so surprising given that the book is about how we remember life.  

The book that changed the way I think about the world

There are many, but one that comes to mind often is James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, which I read in my late teens and somehow changed not so much the world but the way I perceived my relationship to the world, and in particular Malaysia, where I had spent virtually all my life up until then. Even though my circumstances were so different from Baldwin’s, I saw myself mirrored in so much of what he described.   

The book that changed the way I think about the novel

Almost any book by Marguerite Duras, but especially – since they were the first of her works that I read – The Ravishing of Lol Stein andThe Lover still possess the power to make me reflect on what is possible for a writer to achieve. She was so prolific and the quality of her work is sometimes uneven, but she achieves so much freedom on the page that even when I don’t love the book I am impressed by how little she cares for convention.

The book I’m reading right now 

Ali Smith’s Artful, which for some reason I never got round to reading and which is the most dazzling questioning of form – what fiction and literary criticism mean to the reader, how we relate to texts and are often haunted by them; and despite its furious intellect it also manages to be intimate and moving in the most surprising way.

The Booker-nominated book everyone should read

Two books rush to mind immediately – Alan Hollinghurst’s The Folding Star; or Romesh Gunesekera’s Reef. 

Where and when I most like to write, and the tools I need

At my desk (or any desk) in the morning, when I’m not yet fully awake, with peace and quiet and some coffee. I like to get to work before I’m fully aware of the outside world and its numerous demands. Apart from that, I’m not so fussy as to where I write.

My dream book club, what we’d read, and where we’d meet
 
Too difficult to conjure imaginary guests! I’m lucky, I have two or three close friends who are writers, and with whom I talk about books over dinner – so I have the best of both worlds, perfect dinner party guests plus informal book club.