India, June 27 -- Did the title, The Emperor of Gladness, lead the story or did it unlock while you were writing these characters?

It haunted the story. It comes from Hamlet. "Your worm is your only emperor. We fat all creatures else to fat us and we fat ourselves for maggots." No one gets to heaven without going through the maggot. And for me, that was a big treatise about how I think about work and life. And also, Wallace Stevens - "the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream". That poem is about a funeral. I love these paradoxes. The title feels very triumphant, regal. But as you read, you realise that the book is trying to redefine what an emperor is. An Emperor Hog is named after who will eat it. It doesn't rule anything. And Gladn...