“Having studied art history, as opposed to political history, I tend to incorporate found objects into my books. Just as Pablo Picasso glued a fragment of furniture onto the canvas of Still Life with Chair Caning, I like to use whatever’s lying around to paint pictures of the past – traditional pigment like archival documents but also the added texture of whatever bits and bobs I learn from looking out bus windows or chatting up people I bump into on the road.”
