Herman Koch is a Dutch writer and actor. He is the author of seven short story collections and eight novels, including the international bestseller The Dinner.His new novel, Dear Mr M, is a literary thriller about the interconnections between fact and fiction.

There’s a lot in your new novel about the vanity and narcissism of the ageing writer who’s past his prime. Did you have any particular inspirations for the character of Mr M?
When I take his point of view in the second part of the book, he might look a bit like me when I’m 20 years older. I hope not. I hope I won’t be as cynical as he is, but there’s always that possibility.

So is Mr M the writer you hope never to become?
In a way, yes. I’m almost curious – in five or 10 years from now – about going back into oblivion and not being that well known, certainly in my own country. Sometimes when I’m at a party I wish I weren’t this Herman Koch who everybody knows as a writer. I wish I was some anonymous person. And I can only find that experience when I’m in a group of strangers in Italy or Spain who don’t have the slightest idea who I am.

What don’t you like about being the famous Herman Koch?
Some people tend to start a conversation about literature or my books, which is not always the thing at a party or a dinner that I like to talk about. I also like to talk about football or the Olympics or movies. There is a way that people tend to give more importance to what a writer has to say. It happens even with political discussions: “So what’s your opinion on this, being a writer?”

So do you think writers get put on a pedestal?
Yes. And when not, it’s the other reaction – people who want to communicate to you very clearly: “Don’t think you’re a somebody just because you are a writer.” Most people still have this prejudice that a writer doesn’t really work. They’re just idling on the sofa.

Mr M is a literary antihero. Who are your own literary heroes?
I started my real love for literature with 19th-century Russians, reading Chekhov and Tolstoy and Dostoevksy. I was in my late teens, so they influenced me most. What I read now is mostly contemporary English and American literature, but you can’t talk about an influence any more – the influence begins earlier.

You had your first big international literary success in your 50s. Were there advantages to it happening later in life?
Yes, I think that if I’d written a very successful novel at 23, I might have felt: what next? This success that came to me later is a kind of bonus. I treat it more like a present than thinking I’ll finally show the world how good a writer I am. I don’t have this ambition any more. Maybe I never had it.

Your novel The Dinner tells the story of a fateful meal in a restaurant involving two couples. Who would be your fantasy dinner party guests?
It might be a famous football player but he might be quite boring. I would like to meet the French writer Michel Houellebecq. But maybe after the first course I would say: “Sorry, Michel, I have an important phone call to make,” and never show up again.

There’s a lot of dysfunction in your characters.
Yes, and of course they’re not all that sympathetic. But if you’re talking about Dickens, would you have a beer with Fagin or an orange juice with Oliver? I think this is the whole point about unsympathetic characters. There’s something about madness or badness that we like.

As a child you were asked to leave your Montessori school for lack of discipline. Do you have a disciplined writing schedule now?
No, I don’t. The only discipline I have is that I get up and I know I have to write, that I will feel better if I write. Not in a Calvinistic sense but actually feeling mentally and physically better if I’ve written some paragraphs. I don’t really want to write in the morning – it’s difficult to start – but when I have started I think, Oh, this was a very good idea.

Dear M is published by Picador (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £12.29