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'A writer in London has the ever-present possibility of going out of the door and into a space shared with millions; entering a grand, random work of performance art, at any hour of the day or night, any stage of the work.'
'The gulf between the synopsis and the novel is ineffable, bridgeable only by the writing of the book. In the two years or more that follow, the synopsis appears sometimes vital handrail and sometimes obstructive impediment.'
'Thankyou for packing the case for our long journey with language, story, curiosity. Thanks for biting away at the apple, for being solitary and bad at maths, awkward at the youth club.'
'Cliffs populated with soldier orchids, and purple thrifts, and sea hollies. Cliffs high enough to jump from, as the withered bouquets, the teddies and football shirts tied to clifftop railings in temporary shrines, make clear.'
'Meeting and working with hundreds of students was also new; an experience by turns humbling, saddening, stimulating. Every encounter unique in its own way. It made me reflect on roads not taken in my own life.'
'I feel lucky to live in this era of an extraordinary range of readily available texts. I use the word 'read' loosely, often 'dip into' might better describe it, but when I'm enthralled, I can still stay up most of the night reading.'
'Part-philosophy, part-erotica, part-poetic stream of consciousness, The Lover translates the strangeness of Duras' world, of being in it, onto the page with perfect pitch.'
'She recited poems to me that she'd learned at school before leaving at 14 to help tend to soldiers returning wounded from the First World War, and recounted the Greek myths that, as an autodidact, she'd later immersed herself in.'
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