Rose Tremain

The British author on moments of inspiration, from a forest playground to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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My first trip abroad was to Wengen in Switzerland. I was seven. My sister and I and our nanny went up to the Jungfraujoch on a funicular train and were amazed to find snow there in the middle of summer. We discovered a deserted sawmill surrounded by forest and this became our playground. Wild strawberries grew at the edge of the wood and I used this image of hidden fruit in a pivotal scene in my 2016 novel, The Gustav Sonata – “tiny points of red, like beads of blood among the bandages of green leaves”.