Sally Rooney "isn't comfortable" being famous

She told The Sunday Times: "I don't have any interest in marketing my books. And I certainly don't answer interview questions with the intention of selling my book to readers. Whenever I publish a novel I feel obliged to answer questions about it -as if it would be poor form not to. A lot of people seem to want to ask me questions, and if I refused to answer I would feel like a politician refusing to do a press conference. Which is obviously silly. Maybe I ought not answer any questions at all. But I feel like it's a way of remaining loyal to my work and not shying away from it.

"I wouldn't say that I enjoy publishing books. I enjoy writing them. I understand I am lucky to be in a position where my books are published and allow me to earn a living.

"I absolutely know and feel how blessed I am to be able to spend years working on a single book with no one bothering me about when it will be finished. But the publication period is a source of stress for me.

"And I think that's because I'm not comfortable in the public eye and I worry that I'm not a very good ambassador for my work."

The 'Conversations With Friends' author also noted that anything that she put into the public domain via an interview is a source of embarrassment for her but she would feel "guilty" if she were to publish her work without any promotion.

She said: "If I ever have to read back over an interview I've given, I always want the earth to swallow me. Whereas when I read over my fiction, I feel like it stands up. I like my books. I just don't like the version of me who appears in the newspapers every three or four years to talk about them. But if I didn't do that I would feel guilty, like I was sending my book out into the world alone. Like a bad parent. That's the conundrum I find myself grappling with when it's time to publish a book. Which is a relatively rare occurrence. The vast majority of my working life is devoted to writing - and I am truly grateful for that."