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There is another, more profound way in which research is useful to the fiction writer. Research gives you the courage to make things up. The task of the novelist is not to know. It is to imagine. Like a succubus, one must seduce and possess the character. How this is achieved, I do not know. Except that it is a state that one sinks into, and the rest — not just knowledge, but style and technique — are products that are available if you pay the price of time and dedication to the craft.

• The Writing Life: The author of “Brick Lane” and “Alentejo Blue” on how she creates her fictional worlds.