I started writing because …

I have always written. As an eight year old I wrote a 200-page epic about a boy’s adventures travelling the world on a raft. He had to keep falling unconscious so he could miraculously wake up on another ocean. I wrote Minefields chiefly so my kids would know what I was doing, away all the time. I hope to them it will explain who their Dad is. For everyone else, they are just stories from a world in rapid, tumultuous change.

The most challenging part of writing Minefields was …

Overcoming the reluctance to make myself the thread that links it all together. In the end there was no avoiding it. Once I began, my life unfurled like a movie, uncoiling out of the unconscious. The challenge was simply to type fast enough to keep up.

In three words, Minefields is …

Eventful, funny, wry.

As a child my favourite book was ...

The Times Atlas of the World

My favourite place to curl up and read is ...

At home, with the fire glowing and the kids asleep – and with a stack of books at my elbow …