‘Increasingly in society, there has been a general interest in narrative rooted in fact,” says David Lodge, celebrated author and literary critic.

We have been discussing his latest book A Man of Parts, a biographical novel about science-fiction writer H. G. Wells, but we have meandered on to a general discussion about the nature of fiction.

I can see his point. While docu-dramas and biopics permeate the worlds of TV and cinema, and stage productions are often based on actual events (there has even been a musical based on the collapse of Enron), in literature there has also been a vogue for fact-based narratives — for instance, Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning Wolf Hall, which deftly re-imagined the life of Thomas Cromwell.

Lodge admits A Man of Parts is part of this current trend. He has recreated Wells’s life by devouring mountains of documents, but then applied 'novelistic methods’. The novel begins near the end of Wells’s life, reflecting on the experiences that have shaped him: his unhappy beginnings as an apprentice in the drapery trade, his success as a popular writer whose books The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds secured his fame, his fervent embrace of socialist politics and his many sexual encounters.

“As I gradually got deeper into Wells’ network of relationships, I began to get some idea of his extraordinary sexual life and the trouble it caused him,” says Lodge. “He never seemed to learn from it, getting himself into more and more hot water.” Twice married, Wells, a passionate advocate of free love, had numerous affairs (Lodge reckons he slept with over 100 women in his lifetime).

Wells emerges from Lodge’s impressive novel as a daring thinker. He foresees television, tanks, aerial warfare and the atom bomb. A committed political activist. He joins the Fabian society (which he tries to take control of, almost wrecking it). He also writes tracts about the common good and human rights. “He stood twice for parliament,” he said. “I can’t think of many writers of his stature who did that — even if he came last each time. He got his sleeves rolled up. He spent a lot of time on committees working for what he perceived to be the general good.”

What would Wells, the man who is said to have ‘invented tomorrow’, have made of the modern world? Would he have been at ease in it? “I often wonder what he would have made of the permissive society that we live in. He was a prophet of the sexual revolution and believed in recreational lovemaking but I don’t know what he would have made of Channel 4’s The Joy of Teenage Sex. He would have been dismayed by the total materialism of today; although he enjoyed his wealth, he thought one had to strive for a good society.”

Lodge’s career has been divided evenly between academia and writing. He taught English at Birmingham University for almost 30 years (one of his first critical essays was on H. G. Wells), but gave it up to write full time in 1987. His books are known for their comedy and their playful experimentation with the novelistic form (at certain stages, A Man of Parts sees Wells ‘interrogating’ himself in a Q & A format).

The 76-year-old writer lives still lives in the Midlands with his wife Mary, whom he married when he was 24. He is partly deaf (his previous novel, Deaf Sentence, is centred on Prof Desmond Bates who is hard-of-hearing) and is speaking to me on a special phone.

Biographical novels such as A Man of Parts are not without their critics. How much freedom has he allowed himself in sticking to documented facts?

“I haven’t invented any action that has significant consequences for the persons concerned,” he said. “But, inevitably, you have to imagine certain circumstantial details in a novel. The challenge is to present the experience imaginatively, rather than restricting yourself to what can be documented. It’s a controversial form.”

Lodge, a prolific critic, says he gets inundated with books sent to him by friends and publishers. The problem is he simply doesn’t have time to read them, although some of them sound ‘terrifically interesting’. He prefers to read newspapers and magazines, being more drawn to ‘factual content’.

Lodge once admitted that he had been bedevilled by anxiety throughout his life. Has writing provided a source of relief?

“One of the motives for writing is that it is a form of therapy,” he said. “I don’t know writers or artists who don’t go mad at some stage. But the great thing about writing is that you can turn something negative into a positive, a work of art. You give pleasure to readers. Wells had a very underprivileged and unhappy adolescence when he was an apprentice and he turned it into poignant comedy. That’s a good example. It’s true of a great number of writers.”

David Lodge will be at the Oxford Literary Festival on April 2. A Man of Parts is published by Harvil Secker.