But the pressure of all the years when I hadn't written, and all the stories I hadn't written, weighed very heavily on me. But I got to a point where I felt I could write. So at some points during my illness, I suffered very badly with cognitive impairment, with what they call brain fog. The pressure of all the years when I hadn't written, and all the stories I hadn't written, weighed very heavily on me. The statues and the house all feel generally overwhelmingly benevolent to him and he feels like he is in communion with them, like he is sort of almost having a conversation with the world in which he finds himself.' 'He's in a very strange and in some ways inhospitable place, but he doesn't feel it's inhospitable,' Clarke explains. He catches fish in the oceans that roar through rooms down below. The fictional Piranesi explores the massive halls lined with towering statues. They're meant to be gloomy, but I find them quite attractive.' I must admit, I kind of want to go to those fantastic prisons. 'They could possibly be real places, but quite dark and looming. 'He did some engravings of fantastic prisons which have haunted my imagination for a long time,' Clarke says. His name comes from a real-life person, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an 18th-century architect and artist. Her latest is called Piranesi - that's also her narrator's name - and his whole world is a strange, labyrinthine house. Now, 16 years later, Clarke is focused on feeling locked in.

That blockbuster book was all about escape. Susanna Clarke's debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was a sweeping page turner about ancient magic set during the Napoleonic Wars.

Susanna clarke books