The Sucker's Kiss is Alan Parker's first novel

The Sucker's Kiss, published this week, is the story of a seven-year-old pickpocket in 1906 San Francisco.

"I started it after I did Evita, and I put it away because I was asked to do Angela's Ashes," he told BBC Breakfast.

"But last year there was going to be an actor's strike in Hollywood and so I couldn't begin a new film," he added.

"So I went back to the manuscript and did most of the work on it then."

Parker, who is also chairman of the British Film Council, admitted that writing a book was a very different experience to his work as a director.

"Making a film is a collaborative art form. Writing was very solitary, but in the end it was very rewarding, because it's mine alone," he said.

It is not his first book - in 1977 he wrote the novel Puddles In The Lane.

Earthquake

"A film might have my name on it but it also belongs to 100 other people."

The director added that he has no plans to turn The Sucker's Kiss - which begins with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake - into a film.

"It is very cinematic, but I'm very proud that it's a book so I'd like people to enjoy it as a novel first and then we'll see if someone wants to make it.

"But it would probably be quite expensive. It's cheaper to write a book than it is to make a film."

Parker's most recent film, The Life Of David Gale, starring Kate Winslet and Kevin Spacey, was released earlier this year.