James Lasdun

James Lasdun writes poetry, screenplays, short stories and novels, including Seven Lies, which made the Man Booker Prize longlist in 2005.

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

My parents gave me a copy of Thom Gunn’s The Sense of Movement. I’d had vague ideas about being a writer but I didn’t know what I wanted to write until I opened that book and read “On the Move”. It’s still a poem I’d give anything to have written.

Are there any books you wish you’d written?

St Mawr (Lawrence), Seize the Day (Bellow), Naked Lunch (William Burroughs), After Leaving Mr MacKenzie (Jean Rhys), The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon), Benito Cereno (Melville).

Which literary character resembles you?

I always feel very much among my kind when...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue