I never really see a book in the context of what went before because when I finish a book I try to press the delete button so that it’s wiped off the… - Caryl Phillips

Questions of identity have always played a large part in my thinking and writing; and, of course, race is a key component of identity. Certainly for me, and certainly in Britain.

A writer often wants to change a reader’s perception about the world, which is a political act. But we have to work through character, so helping the reader to feel close to fictional characters is the gate through which we have to usher the reader. I am one of those writers who hopes to use character as a way of introducing the reader to a new way of thinking about the world.

It felt uncomfortably foreign, I would say. Obviously, it was the first time I had been in a country where everybody looked like me. But obviously, culturally, it was completely alien. And I found people in the street in St. Kitts actually were calling me "English"..