Novelist Barbara Trapido gave her audience a privileged insight into the writer’s mind during a talk about her new book Sex And Stravinsky at the Arts Centre on Thursday.

She was quick to confess, though, that there are only a couple of brief sex scenes in the book, which is set during the era of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, and centres on the composition of the ballet Pulcinella by the young Stravinsky. Trapido explained how her writing process, far from being planned and organised, is a slow and gradual playing with characters and ideas.

She’ll notice, for instance, how certain characters are all wearing the same colour, or have names beginning with ‘J’, and in thinking what this might mean she'll find the next impetus for her plot or themes.

Her writing is a gradual unfolding and discovery, rather than working to any pre-arranged plan.

Perhaps best known for her novel Brother Of The More Famous Jack, Trapido has also written a memorable account of growing up in South Africa in the 1950s and ‘60s, the autobiographical novel Frankie And Stankie. – review by Jill Sharp