India, May 30 -- How does your experience as an international human rights lawyer help you as an author? What skills did you pick up in your previous career and continue to rely on?

I was a lawyer briefly and a bad one. I was very young when I stopped. What has stayed with me is the training in trying to identify the very heart of an issue so that you can ask the right questions. I have also retained a sense of what lawyers call natural justice, which means that you have to consider the opposing view, almost with as much energy, to make sure that you are being fair. This approach has been very important to me in all my work.

Lawyers are also trained to dig dirt on people, which is what you do very well with your book Wifedom: Mrs Orwell...