'When I was writing my fourth novel I had two toddlers but I was trapped inside my story; I was compelled to keep writing.'
23-02-2017
Roopa Farooki explores what it’s like to be brown when all your childhood literary heroes are white, and explains why representation matters if we want to draw more children into reading.
Ray French considers his Irish roots and adopted British identity, and how, in writing about the Irish experience in Britain, he inhabits ‘that fascinating space between home and exile.’
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The best way to challenge the anxiety of influence, for Roopa Farooki, was to tackle it head on. She modelled her latest novel on James Joyce’s Dubliners, transforming the setting to a multicultural South London in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. And where Joyce identified Dublin as ‘the centre of paralysis’, Farooki makes London a centre of hope.
Roopa Farooki's problem has never been writer's block, but the opposite: too many ideas, too many leads. A new book is started almost as soon as the previous one is completed. But last time she used this trusted method, her unconscious mind upended her: another book was calling out to be written. Blindly, helplessly, she allowed herself to listen.