The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.
From John Banville
I am the worst judge of my books.
All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at the same time, a novel is never autobiographical even if it describes the life of the author. Literary writing is a completely different medium.
My work is frequently described as cold, which is baffling, since it seems to me embarrassingly, shame-makingly, scandalously warm. I find my work filled with sentiment, and I can't imagine why people find it cold.
How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of.
When fans of mine meet me, I can see the disappointment in their eyes. Every artist knows of this phenomenon.
I always think that if you know somebody's name then there's something slightly fraudulent about that person. Otherwise we wouldn't have heard of him or her.
I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.
We artists love to talk tough, but we're just as sentimental as everyone else when it comes down to it.
Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.
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