Adam Foulds is the dark horse on this year's Booker shortlist, a writer who seems to have leapt fully formed into the literary spotlight.
He explains why he decided to devote his second novel to a little-known episode in the history of poetry, when the disintegrating "peasant poet" John Clare was incarcerated in an Epping Forest asylum along with the brother of the up-and-coming Alfred Tennyson.
In a year when some have criticised the Booker judges for shortlisting so many historical novels, he considers how historical fiction can illuminate the issues of our own era. He also discusses the structural challenges of writing about madness, and explains why writing poetry has made him a better novelist.
