The novelist W. Somerset Maugham is well known for the plays, short stories and novels he created in the early 1900s. He’s also known for sourcing material from conversations with strangers while traveling, sometimes not even changing the person’s name in his story.
It was one of these stories in particular that captured the attention of novelist Tan Twan Eng, whose new book, The House of Doors, re-imagines a time in Maugham’s life when he discovered the subject matter for his next work.
I recently spoke with Tan Twan Eng about Maugham’s private nature, capturing multiple perspectives on the page, and how he injected some imagination into the historic writer.
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The House of Doors was published by Bloomsbury.
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