Tom Holland and Robert Harris

Tom Holland and Robert Harris on eco-radicals and why monarchy matters

Illustrator: Natasha Lawson 
issue 17 December 2022

TOM HOLLAND: Here’s something I always wonder when I read one of your books. You’ve written novels set in the present, you’ve even written a novel set in the future, but overwhelmingly your fiction is set in past periods, spanning ancient Rome up to the second world war. What is it about the past that appeals most to you as a novelist? The mirror that it holds up to the present or the sense of difference from the way we see the world?

ROBERT HARRIS: I’ve always been very interested in history.

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