As his new novel, The Memory Room, is released, Christopher Koch is interviewed in "The Australian" by Greg Sheridan.
Part of what the novelist does is unconscious, in Koch's view. Novelists can't always explain everything that leads them to write about particular themes and subjects. "I've never set a book in Europe. I've lived in Europe three times but somehow or other it wasn't the experience that engaged me in that way. I really don't have much interest in theories about what Australia should be doing in Asia. Writers to some extent are childish, and it's at the childish level that one really engages with any experience. What really moves you is at the very personal, childish level of the imagination. My business is the imagination and my imagination is engaged by Asia."
