Since a ground-breaking co-operation in 1983 between the flamenco singer Enrique Morente and the Orquesta Andalusi de Tetuan, Spanish interest in Andalus music has been growing. Musically, the equivalent of the arches and patios of Moorish architecture is the ala, that body of raga-like song suites (or nuba) originated at the medieval courts of Granada, Cordoba and Seville, and still preserved in Morocco by a dozen Andalus orchestras composed of lutes, rebab fiddles, violins, qanun zithers and percussion. For 700 years, between the arrival of the first Arab invaders in AD711 and the flight of the last defenders of Granada before the all- conquering Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain – or Al Andalus, as it was then known – lay under Islamic rule. But I really don’t think that’s true.”n `Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard’ is out on 11 April, price £13.99 hardback, £8.99 paperback.

This is not a review, but I am happy to say that I thought it was a hoot, even though I was more on the look-out than usual for sloppy editing, literals and skewed plots, which is very unfair.”I’m going to go pale with rage and grit my teeth when people say it’s not as professionally edited and written as the other ones I’ll do my nut. Brownout is a political comedy set in the Philippines, with a character-list of grasping politicians, tooled-up goons, venal hacks, even more venal writers, and the glorious pariah, Professor Pfeidwengeler, whose perversion of choice sets the metaphorical subtext of the novel. Mo is a charming individual but not, one would suspect, malleable; and he has this annoying habit of writing a different novel each time, which drives some editors mad. People would be surprised how simply you can do it for yourself.”I can imagine some publishers reading this and wincing You can partly see their point of view. £6,000 will get you a print- run of 5,000, although he’s printed more than that; and he has complete control of his output.”If you’re one of those conglomerates, then picking good books and publishing the authors well is secondary; you’re playing office politics, you’re pinning your flag to the correct superior, you’re intimidating your subordinates and you’re bullshitting the authors, in that order. I think journalists are amazingly bloody incompetent and slapdash – but if you read some communications from publishers, the fuckers can’t even write.

Number two, I really like doing it – and what’s in your material interests isn’t necessarily what you like.” He pauses, and then says, with insouciant wistfulness: “I feel sorry for other authors, actually.”Publishing, he says, is “money for old rope”. But it was a bit like jumping into an icy pool – you get used to it. Every day that has gone by I’ve felt more sanguine about it, until about six months ago I was figuratively jumping up and down with glee because I was doing it myself.. I’m just so pleased that I did it Number one, it’s going to be in my material interests. I’m used to being published by people who think I’m the bee’s knees, like Diana Athill, Carmen Callil; they like my writing, and it makes a big difference.”At which point Mo, who does like his writing, decided to terminate the auction and publish himself.”It was a very bad feeling It was like I was committing suicide as a writer. And I thought, they’re going to shove me back down there, if not with this book then with the next one. I don’t have a lot of faith and goodwill towards publishers and they don’t have a lot of goodwill towards me either.”The bidding had gone up to £125,000 and might have gone further; Mo claims that later he was offered the same sum as he had been offered for The Redundancy: £200,000.”Even if they gave me that, I thought, I don’t want them to fuck up my paperback sales for ever The important thing is readers, not the money And then I didn’t like the look of the publishers Their comments didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me. If it was tennis, they’d be low-down seeds who could give the top seed a spanking on their day.