The author on struggling with Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and the book that inspired her to become a writerThe book I am currently readingDavid Maraniss’s meticulous and absorbing biography of Barack Obama. The book I wish I’d writtenA Heart So White by Javier Marías is so passionate, languid and beautiful, I just wish it were mine. I expect I began with The Sea, The Sea, which won the Booker prize when I was 14, though it is A Severed Head I remember best. Now every book I write has a question at the core, one that bothers me enough to devote several years to trying to uncover the answer. But the book I wish I had read early on is the Qur’an.

Source: The Guardian April 13, 2018 09:33 UTC