We asked our authors from around the world to share their thoughts on why they write, why they read, and the books that have influenced them.
Here’s what they had to say.
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Karolina Webb
Why I write: Some years ago, although enjoying great success, I was accused by certain literary critics of repeating myself too much in my work. Allowing such a thing as jealousy being at work here, I worried about the issue until a magazine interview with a great British playwright, Dennis Potter, gave me a new perspective on the issue. To my great joy, he said: “All creative work is a kind of collage in which our obsessions, subliminal or otherwise, are repeatedly reworked. Think Picasso and Gauguin. We are all our own cut-ups.” Sticking to my own field of endeavour, Jane Austen, who I adore, Charles Dickens, incomparable, and Raymond Chandler, a complete one-off: all three repeat themselves totally brilliantly. As for Jack Higgins? Only time will tell.
