'I absorbed vast amounts of shame as a child'

On legacies, how global events impact individuals, and on her novel being longlisted for the Women's Prize

- Saurabh Sharma

Your characters feel the ripple effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Can you tell us how you view the elasticity of time, and how understanding is shaped in hindsight, with such events?

I wasn't present at the fall of the Berlin Wall, but I was an engineering student in Budapest — so, behind the Iron Curtain.

I have been looking back a lot lately... I'm at a time in my life when looking back has helped me understand a lot of things. This way of making meaning from past events reflects what I have grown to understand as the adverse experiences of my childhood, how the past continues into the present; that elasticity of time you mention.