Sixteen years on from his last novel, Glasgow-based Northern Irish writer Bernard MacLaverty reflects on the events that have shaped his new book, Midwinter Break

There are days when Bernard MacLaverty likes nothing more than to hurl James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw against the radiator at the far end of his study. The author of Cal, Lamb and some of the finest short stories in the English language doesnt throw tattered copies of Ulysses or Pygmalion, nor is the hurling performed in a fit of pique or frustration when the days sentences knot or buckle. No, this is an act of great joy one involving knitted figurines of Irelands greatest men of letters and performed with the enthusiastic participation of his youngest grandson. As each figurine is equipped with a concealed magnet, victory is decided by which author hits the radiator then sticks. So is literary rivalry settled in

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'I left behind the hatred, the bombings and the fear' - The Times