“My writing concerns attachment and loss in the context of family, work and class. The idea for a story is usually an encounter in day-to-day life when an image, a scene, a soundbite captures my imagination and sets off associations, memories, dreams, fantasies. “Picasso’s Face” started from witnessing a scene while walking in Valencia: a woman stuck her child down on a busy pavement and walked off. The little boy’s face reminded me of a photograph of Picasso I’d seen in an exhibition earlier: its expression both adult and baby-like. My fantasies about this scene, mingled with a conversation about marriage post-Franco, and a newspaper report of a woman found dead in odd circumstances – her age the only detail – seeded the story. A dark, surreal narrative emerged, inviting readers to interpret it – including the ‘baby’ – for themselves.” From the Introduction