William Boyd discusses his biggest literary leap ever; writing from the point of view of a woman. His biggest risk was never asking a single woman for their thoughts or opinions.

He says that the way to do it is to forget absolutely everything to do with sexuality and gender differences. Ignore all you know between man and woman and focus entirely on personality. All decisions in the story have to be made by the character and not by the writer.

William writes from the view of a woman in Brazzaville Beach (1990), in which he portrays the character Hope Clearwater, and again in The Blue Afternoon (1993) and Restless (2006).

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