The Hindu: An Interview With Damon Galgut: "I am constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains."
Date: Jun 6 2015
WHEN: I try to get going early, on the assumption that the way you begin your day is the way you continue. But certain books only want to be written at night, so there’s no hard rule where work is concerned.
HOW: I work by hand, with a fountain pen, in bound notebooks I buy in India. Stationery gets me excited, because it has an individual character, unlike computers, which may be convenient but are generic and bland.
WHERE: Mostly at my desk at home, though I have done quite a lot of work in a bare hotel room in Goa too. I’m constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains, and airports are definitely out.
WHAT: That depends on the project. My last book, about E.M. Forster, required a huge amount of research and note-taking. But mostly I pursue quiet themes, and my own ignorance is part of the raw material.
