Author Interviews | Page 4

Will Storr | 'Life is hard enough without beating ourselves up for not being Gandhi'

Self-help titles that perpetuate the idea that a ‘perfect’ self is attainable are dismantled by an investigation into modern-day narcissism. Read more

Mahsuda Snaith | 'I'm British Bangladeshi, and I never came across many books from that perspective'

Life on a council estate is not always as tough and gritty as some novels would have you believe. There can be lightness and humour... Read more

Sally Rooney | 'You should make work that you don't necessarily expect people to like or love'

A precocious young Irish writer whose début was at the heart of a seven-way auction has produced a novel that belies its creator’s years, reckons... Read more

Gail Honeyman | 'I wanted it to be hopeful at the end'

A first novel that was at the heart of a fierce auction before the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015 lives up to the hype, says... Read more

Bella Bathurst | 'Social situations are knackering, so there's a tendency to isolate yourself'

An intriguing blend of memoir, audible history and anecdote makes for a fascinating exploration of the impact of the aural. Caroline Sanderson reports. Read more

Jon McGregor | 'I tried really hard not to toy with the reader, not to lead them down the garden path'

Literary novelist Jon McGregor explains how his fifth novel in an impressive and lauded oeuvre, his first for Fourth estate, interrogates the extraordinary within the... Read more

Megan Hunter | 'It's prose that is very influenced by poetry'

A slender but spellbinding début packs a punch that belies its brevity, with the author’s background in poetry shining through her first published full-length prose.... Read more

Rutger Bregman | 'Every milestone of civilisation started as a utopian fantasy'

Had 28-year-old Dutch historian Rutger Bregman pursued his original personal utopia, he would have completed a PhD on some obscure aspect of the history of... Read more

Min Kym | 'The instrument just seemed to complete my life'

Caroline Sanderson talks to Min Kym about her book Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung, and her journey through music.... Read more

Declan Murphy and Ami Rao | a story two decades in the making

Champion jockey Declan Murphy wasn’t expected to survive a horrific riding accident in 1994 - let alone live to tell the tale, in conjunction with... Read more

Julia Donaldson and Helen Oxenbury | picture book royalty join forces

Two members of picture book royalty - Julia Donaldson and Helen Oxenbury - have joined forces for a new and charming tale. Read more

George Saunders | 'My goal is not to be smart, not to show off, but to move my reader'

The Folio Prize-winning writer takes a single moment from american history and conjures his spellbinding first full-length fiction Read more

Ayóbámi Adébáyò | 'I wanted to write about a time that really shaped the way Nigeria is today'

A scintillating début novel, inspired in part by the tutelage of compatriot author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, that looks at the evolution of Nigeria across three... Read more

Kate Hamer | 'I was brought up on fairytales and I think that informs a lot of what I do'

The author’s follow-up to her unusual and striking début is set in the ancient Forest of Dean. Read more

Mohsin Hamid | 'It is impossible for me to think of myself any more as a person of just one place'

The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist returns with his fourth novel Exit West, which has migrations of both geography and emotion at its heart. ... Read more