Kureishi, a research associate on the creative writing course at Kingston University, said: "One of the things you notice is that when you switch on the television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus in America, it's always a writing student. The writing courses, particularly when they have the word 'creative' in them, are the new mental hospitals. But the people are very nice.

"When I teach them, they are always better at the end – and more unhappy." He added that creative writing courses set up false expectations that a literary career would inevitably follow. "The fantasy is that all the students will become successful writers - and no one will disabuse them of that. When you use the word creative and the word course there is something deceptive about it."

"I always give people the same mark – 71% – and then you write these reports. I always say they were well-behaved, well-dressed ... But how can you mark creative writing?"