Liam Harte on Raymond Carver, Seamus Heaney and Edward Said

What was the first book to make an impression on you?

Two books stand out: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

What was your favourite book as a child?

Island of the Great Yellow Ox by Walter Macken.

And what is your favourite book or books now?

Right now, it would probably be Raymond Carver's Collected Stories or – if it existed – the Collected Poems of Seamus Heaney, as I find myself returning continually to his verse since his death last year.

What is your favourite quotation?

“You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that” – Samuel Beckett.

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Tristram Shandy.

Who is the most under-rated Irish author?

I think the work of Eugene McCabe doesn’t get the critical attention it deserves.

Which do you prefer – ebooks or the traditional print version?

Even though I read a lot online, I still favour the printed word over the digital.

What is the most beautiful book you own?

If "beautiful" includes "prized", then my first edition of John McGahern's The Dark, which I received as a present some years ago.

Where and how do you write?

Usually in my study at home, on my computer.

What book changed the way you think about fiction?

Reading the work of Edward Said as an undergraduate student was a hugely revelatory experience, especially his Orientalism (1978) and The World, the Text and the Critic (1983).

What is the most research you have done for a book?

My research for The Literature of the Irish in Britain: Autobiography and Memoir, 1725-2001 (2009) stretched across a dozen or so years, on and off.

What book would you give to a friend’s child on their 18th birthday?

Given the shrinking nature of attention spans, I'd give them something short and haunting, such as Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants.

What book do you wish you had read when you were young?

Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, had it been around then.

What advice would you give to an aspiring author?

Work on your psychological resilience. Setbacks and rejection are inevitable, so one needs to develop a tough mindset.

What weight do you give reviews?

I find it impossible to ignore reviews of my own work, especially those written by critics whom one respects. I don’t believe those who claim to be indifferent to reviews.

Where do you see the publishing industry going?

Given that the digital infrastructure already permeates so much of our lives, it’s hard to see a future for publishing in which paper triumphs over pixels.

What lessons have you learned about life from reading?

In a nutshell, what it means to be a human being, in all aspects, and what it feels like to experience the world through the consciousness of different human beings.

What has being a writer taught you?

That the challenge of finding the words to match the thought is never-ending.

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, Emily Dickinson, James Joyce and Bob Dylan.

What is the funniest scene you’ve read?

It’s hard to beat Flann O’Brien for sheer laugh-out-loud wit and inventiveness.

If you were to write a historical novel, which event or figure would be your subject?

Derry, 1608: just after the Flight of the Earls, just before the Ulster plantation.

Liam Harte is senior lecturer in Irish and modern literature in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. His latest monograph, Reading the Contemporary Irish Novel 1987-2007 (Wiley Blackwell, 2014), was published earlier this year.