Christopher Fowler

So the adventure, the crime novel, the historical novel, the romance were the mainstays of popular literature.

I have an issue with the critical arrogance about populism.

Populism just means good writing in my book.

It doesn't mean that something is for less educated people or by not so bright writers.

I think one of the problems is that we've come to think of the paperback, the humble paperback, as being a bit of something for the masses.

And I find that rather offensive because, first of all, they're a gateway to reading when you're young.

And I don't think that there's any difference between that and so-called literary fiction.

If we say that paperbacks are not as important as hardback literature, I personally think that's wrong.

The other problem is, if you use humor, for example, you create a terrible problem for yourself because...

Humour doesn't, it never wins awards.

You can express humour in a book and as soon as you do that, the literary element comes off of what you're writing and you are slightly overlooked by the critics.

So this isn't about books that please the critics, this is about books that please real readers.

I think there's a couple of things.

One is often there's only room for one big star in a certain style.

So J.K.

Rowling, Harry Potter, that's pretty much covered the magical schoolboy subgenre, of which there are many other writers doing many other examples.

So, with crime, Agatha Christie was incredibly reliable.

She produced regularly solid, good books written in simple prose.

Gladys Mitchell was not terribly reliable.

Some of her books were incredible.