John Niven

There is a psychic cost children bear when they grow up in fear.

I remembered being young in the late '70s and early '80s and growing up at the height of the Cold War. I remembered how scared I was of nuclear weapons, how often I though about them and about the possibility of everything and everyone I knew vanishing in a second in temperatures hotter than the centre of the sun.

I go to the Caribbean for a month every January with hand baggage only. All you need is a passport and a credit card.

I don't do sports, and my idea of hell is being dragged around ruins/museums/famous buildings, so I guess I'm a beach bum.

The first book I bought with my own money as a teenager was Martin Amis's 'Money.' You know that thing when you read a book and you think, 'I'm going to have to read every word ever written by this man.'

I love being a writer. I have a great life. I get up in the morning and pad around in my dressing gown and listen to Radio 4.