Where are you happiest?

With my husband and children. At home, at the beach. In Berlin or Paris. In bed with a book.

What is your favourite word?

Libellule – French for dragonfly.

Which human quality do you most admire?

Courage. Without it, you can’t maintain any of the others.

Where would you like to have been born?

I used to think I would have liked to be a young adult in Weimar Germany, but now that I’ve spent five years with my head and heart there, I don’t feel that way anymore – it was so fierce, contested, violent, poor – not just a licentious artists’ party. I think the late 1960s in Australia was a pretty good time and place to have been born.

What is your favourite book?

Too hard, but probably Anna Karenina.

And your favourite literary hero and heroine?

Hamlet, absolutely. Also I am very fond of Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe as a narrator, though in real life I’m sure he’d drive me crazy with his indecision and inner dithering – which is precisely what makes him such a charming narrator. I have a very soft spot for Frankie in The Member of the Wedding.

What, if anything, impedes your writing?

Crises of confidence. Occasional childbearing and associated lack of sleep.

How old were you when your first book appeared?

Thirty-five.

Of which of your books are you fondest?

You can’t choose – that would be like choosing between children! That said, All That I Am is such a newborn, it needs more attention.

In a phrase, how would you characterise your work?

Honest.

Who is your favourite author?

Too many, again – and also it tends to go book by book for me. That said: Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Kafka, Orwell, Christina Stead, Patrick White, Richard Ford, Lorrie Moore, Bruce Chatwin, Ryszard KapuŚciński, Marilynne Robinson.

How do you regard publishers?

I have found them to have a wonderful, infectious passion for books. They think of themselves as midwives to the culture, bringing out new things.

What do you think of the state of criticism?

At its best, it is the beginning of an insightful conversation about a book. At its worst, it can read like mindless opinions spouted into a Dictaphone.

If you had your time over again, would you choose to be a writer?

I’m not sure it’s a choice. I find myself secretly hoping my children will not be writers – while of course wanting them to write well and read well. But I can’t imagine being any-thing else.

What do you think of writers’ festivals?

I treat them like a party I don’t necessarily wish to be at, but I’d be upset if I wasn’t invited. As I get older, I like knowing an international community of writers – that’s a great privilege in a mostly solitary professional life.

Do you feel artists are valued in our society?

Yes, though not as much as in German or French society, which are the others I’m familiar with. Anglo-American culture places the economy in the centre, in a very practical way. The European cultures I’m familiar with treat the economy more as something that allows other, more resonant aspects of human existence to flourish.

What are you working on now?

Another novel. Nothing German.