You started your writing career in newspaper journalism and worked in that field for many years before writing your first novel in 1997. What prompted that move into fiction?
It sounds like such a cliché to say I always wanted to write, but it’s true. Looking back now, I think I was a writer who became a journalist and I used to think I was a hopeless journalist because I couldn’t bear to ask anyone any hard questions. If someone was suffering, I would feel physically sick at having to ask them a tough question about what was...