One of the most powerful novels I have read in the last ten years is The Road Home by Rose Tremain.  I’m not sure how many of you read this tale of an Eastern European immigrant newly arrived in London, but the novel won an Orange Booker Prize, and I have to say that I probably bored friends by pushing copies into their hands and telling them they would gain empathy with the immigrant experience.

So, it was a surprise today to hear Rose Tremain question her right to have written a novel th...