Skip to Content

'It's not photographic'

14 June 2004

'Every time I write a book there's a sort of prime fulfilled, unconsummated. It's about being at the height of your powers. Or more having access to ideas and energy that you need to fulfil...

A novel about people who are normal won't come out as reality. A book is like a stage. You've got people a little larger than life always. It's not photographic so you have to exaggerate a bit...

I wish people wouldn't write novels if they can't do it. It would be better, if they had an urge to write, if they wrote memoirs, diaries, or just letters to friends, wonderful letters.'

Muriel Spark, interviewed in The Times by Nicola Christie on publication of her new novel The Finishing School