Born in London in 1954, Louis de Bernières published his first book in 1990 and since then has written two volumes of poetry, numerous works of short fiction and eight novels. He’s best known for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, a musical, richly-layered love story, set during the Second World War - which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Novel in 1994 and was later made into a film with Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz. In a lively and unusually revealing conversation, he speaks to the Telegraph’s Laura Powell about his successes, his struggles, and the three books that have most profoundly shaped him.