Using real locations in historical fiction
Historical novelists recreate the emotions and events of distant times. For some novelists, this is a matter of supreme imagination and invention, …
Amadeus, Murder and the real Mozart
The long wait for a successor to Amadeus is over. In fact, my new novel MOZART’S LAST ARIA answers questions about the great composer’s death that are …
My Mozart novel and the intifada
If there had never been a Palestinian intifada, I might never have written my novel about the death of Mozart, MOZART’S LAST ARIA, which is published …
Writers enter character like Black Swan and Springsteen
Writers enter character for more than just dialogue A writer needs to enter the characters in his/her novel. I’ve talked about this with other …
Gentleman and thug: researching my new historical novel
One of the great pleasures of novel-writing is the research which, for almost every book, ought to bring the writer to investigate different areas of …
How to create empathy in writing
Empathy is vital for a writer Malcolm Muggeridge (an old English literateur) once said that George Orwell “was no good as a novelist, because he …
My voice and his voice: first- or third-person narrative in the novel
Robert Harris has been one of my favorite authors since I first laid hands on “Fatherland,” his “what if the Nazis had won” thriller. “Enigma” and …
Guardian: Top 10 Arab-world novels
The Guardian asked me to contribute to their regular feature in which authors pick their top 10 novels on a particular subject. Read my top 10 novels …
Krimis, polars, gialli: What crime novels are called around the world
Sometimes people talk about crime novels as though they were all the same. The sheer number of different names for variants of the crime novel proves …