Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S6 Ep3: Bookshelfie: Irenosen Okojie

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Join Vick Hope as she sits down with writer Irenosen Okojie to discuss wild imaginations and magical realism in literature and if imposter syndrome comes into play when you're a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Irenosen’s intoxicating debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won the 2016 Betty Trask Award, and her highly acclaimed short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch have both been nominated for countless awards and received praise from Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood to name just a couple. In 2021 she was awarded an MBE For Services To Literature. Irenosen is also a judge for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, and has previously judged the Women’s Prize Discoveries programme for new writers. Irenosen’s book choices are:  ** Jazz by Toni Morrison  ** Black Vodka by Deborah Levy  ** At the Bottom of The River by Jamaica Kincaid  **  I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell  ** The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Six? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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Or the character might be something different. You're talking to my mum's Nigerian, half my family in Nigerian. I know, because I hear these stories. I'm like, mum, that's not what auntie said. Yeah, exactly. And she's like, well, this is the story from me. And this is the story. And you know what?

Exactly. That's okay. Because they're stories. With thanks to Bayley's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I'm your host for Season 6 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2023 reading list. Hello, welcome back to the podcast.

This year's Women's Prize for Fiction Long List is out now and not to be missed. To discover the 16 brilliant authors and their books, head over to our website wwwwomensprizefiction.co.com. Today's guest is the phenomenal writer, Irenison AcoJ. Her intoxicating debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won the 2016 Betty Trask Award and her highly acclaimed short story collections, Speak Gigantula and Nudy Branch, have both been nominated for countless awards and received praise from Bernardine Everisto

and Margaret Atwood, to name just a couple. In 2021, she was awarded an MBA for services to literature. And very excitingly, Erinison is also a judge for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction and has previously judged the Women's Prize Discoveries Program for new writers. Welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me.

What an honour and privilege. I'm delighted to be here in the flesh because, of course, we have met before. You were on The Turn Up for the Books podcast and we interviewed you over to Zoom during the pandemic, which is a lot of fun, so it's lovely. It was one of those little windows and you're trying to connect. And it was amazing.

We got to talk about books, which is what we're going to do again today. This is our relationship around us. But it's not quite the same. You can't quite feed off one another's energy in the same way. So I'm so happy to have you here in person. And I'd love to know actually because you are such a brilliant writer, but you're writing at the same time as judging the women's prize. I've judged the women's prize.

And I know it is amazing, but it is a lot. How is that going for you? Yeah, it's a wonderful privilege to be judging the women's prize. Firstly, I'm a huge fan of the prize. I've followed it every single year. I look at what books are longlisted and shortlisted. So I'm like a massive fan. So it's been slightly surreal.

judging it this year. It's been a juggle because as you know, the amount of work is a lot, but it is such a joy to like read these books, to be immersed in these incredible worlds, to feel inspired by them. I've had to squeeze it working on my own novel. You know, so just squeeze it in. Because, you know, this is what writers do. We're like contortionists, basically. You fit everything in. So I kind of, I wake up in the mornings very early to work on my edits before I go off and do other things, including reading these amazing books. So it's been a juggle, but absolutely worth it. I've loved the process so far. You mentioned delving into so many different worlds. Do those worlds ever cloud the ones that you're creating yourself? There is that temptation, I think, because you're

just so inspired by some of these amazing voices that it can slowly start to infiltrate your own brain and your own sort of space. So you have to be careful, I think, to draw that line. And it's a tricky balance. So the thing that I do is I go back into my own world that I've created and I might read a chapter or two just to get that sensibility going again and go, oh right, tonally, I've got it. I'm back in because you've got a tone of somebody else's world in your brain. So you do have to like have that separation. I think it's important. Yeah. Sometimes we have writers who we've interviewed on this podcast who said when I'm writing, I cannot read anything else in case it gets in the way

in case I lose sight of the characters that I'm creating and their essence and others who say, well, it inspires me, it inspires me to read others. And our producer, door, was just saying, before we started recording,

you know, you could get massive imposter syndrome by reading so many books by all these brilliant women. Yeah, it's very true about imposter syndrome. You can get very, very intimidated. You know, sometimes you read someone's work and you're like, oh my God, I should stop writing.

This person exists. But you know, you do have to remember that you also have something to offer. You also bring something to the page. And I think the trick is to stay curious and to stay excited. So I will read someone's work and go, how have the mechanics of this work? How have they done that? You know, I want to learn from them. And that's how I sort of ground myself.

Because every writer goes through a process. You know, we see the amazing finished project. But it's a process. And they have to get there. They have to develop that voice. they have to get more confident. I remember meeting other writers and talking to them about imposter syndrome. And you'll be amazed, even the most established writers still have it.

It never goes away, but it's how you manage it, I think, that sort of makes a difference. Aside from the 70 odd books that you have to read in order to judge this prize, what sort of literature, novels, or maybe not even fiction, do you gravitate towards for your own pleasure? I love all sorts of fiction, to be honest. I'm a really open-minded reader. I'm not a book snob. So I would read everything from literary fiction to a thriller to romance. I love it all, depending on what kind of mood I'm in.

I also, I guess, gravitate towards experimental fiction because that is the sort of writer I am. So I'm looking to see who is pushing the boundaries in terms of fiction. Who is doing things that no one else is doing? and that kind of really gets my fire going like, wow, this person is this, so I need to learn what they're doing and how to do it. It sounds like you really read to fire yourself up. You're not the type of person who needs the escape to relax.

Or to chill out. I mean, I do that too. That's also nice. But, you know, writing is my craft. And to stay on top of my craft, I need to know about the people that are doing amazing, exciting things. So, you know, you mentioned Bernardina Veristo, for example. huge inspirational figure for me and somebody that's been a bit like a fairy godmother for me actually

in my life as a writer. I just think what she's done, her body of work is tremendous. Every book is different. Every book is experimental and I don't know how she's done that. How do you hold all these different worlds in your heads and how do you find a determination to keep going, particularly doing those fallow periods where it feels like nothing much is happening. So she's really inspired me and people like Leone Ross as well, also a weird writer and a brilliant short story writer.

So yeah, I kind of draw inspiration from lots of different factions. I love the term weird writer being a massive compliment. I know from the way you've just said it, but I'm going to say, she's just a weird writer. I love it. Let's talk about your first.

book, Shelfy book, Renison, which is Tony Morrison's jazz. Oh, such a favourite. Written to the blues rhythm of 1920s Harlem, the Nobel Prize winner's novel about the desperate act of a travelling salesman and its repercussions for those near to him is a spectacular meditation on the power of hope. Passionate and profound, jazz brings us back and forth in time in a tragic narrative assembled from the desires and fears of black urban life. Tell me why you pit this book? Well, firstly, it's the book I think that changed my life. I read this book when I was 14 years old. I had never read anything like it before. I love the power of it. I love the fact that it was so unapologetic and unwavering in its exploration of black life in all its richness and

complexities and multiplicities. And again, it was doing something interesting with form. You know, It was moving back and forth in time and giving you these dimensions to these powerful, potent characters. You know, you pick up a Tony Morrison book and a kind of transformation occurs. This is why she's so beloved. So it's for that reason that this is, you know, the first book that I chose because it had such an effect on me. Her grasp of language is just phenomenal. It's so loaded. It's so charged.

I don't know how she was able to do this. She obviously was somebody who was incredibly well read, but also very widely read, because you can see so many different references in her writing. And I love language. As somebody who loves to play with language, loves to bend it, loves to be subversive with it. You know, she is the writer that showed me kind of what was possible,

and it just sparks something in me. You said this changed your life. When did you read it? What age was? I was 14 when I first read jazz. Yeah, I was 14 years old. And I had been an avid reader anyway from the age of eight. You know, I remember picking up Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dhar. Again, another beloved writer.

I mean, that was such a hilarious fiendish book. So I was always reading and I was also probably reading books I shouldn't have been reading, admittedly as well. You know. You know that all right. So when I came to read jazz, even though I was, I felt like there was, I had a maturity. I was kind of like a wise soul in a young body. So I felt like I was ready for that book. And I just inhaled it.

I just imbibed it. And I just wanted to read more of her work after that. You said it ignited something in you. Was that as a, I mean, obviously as a reading, you wanted to read more and more, but as a writer, how did it affect you? Oh, definitely. I was playing around.

I was writing miniature poems. I was writing a diary, you know, where I was scribbling these funny little observations about my family and anybody that I would encounter. So in a way I was kind of using that book and the way it inspired me to kind of reinterpret my own existence because I felt that language was so great for that and it was like this hidden sort of lightsaber,

you know, to be able to play with words and to be able to create something from it. So yeah, it was like this, it had this profound effect on me. Just trying to imagine the circumstance of you reading this because if you were about 14 and you'd moved to English, in aged eight from Nigeria to attend a boarding school in Norfolk. Where was not only your head up, but your life out?

Where did this fit in? Yeah, no, that's a really, really good question. So at that stage, I was attending my second boarding school in Stanford, Lincolnshire, and I was at home on a break from being at school, actually, and I picked up this book from the local library, and it was during the holiday period. And I remember it was, I think it was, was quite a like lovely spring day and I was just you know I picked it up I was reading I read

the first page and it just I wanted to carry on you know so it was it was a it was a fertile period but it was also a lonely period as well because yeah I was having I was having trouble adjusting to being back in a boarding school setting my first experience of boarding school in Hortnerth Norfolk I loved you know I was so young it was kind of scary but people were really lovely but this experience you know going to boarding school where everybody had formed their friendships and my father was like i'm going to put you in this boarding school um you know i felt like i was coming into it as an outsider so that was that was tricky so i had this kind of outsiderness about me um and and books made me feel less lonely you know they were like

companions for me and this is also part of the reason why i sought them out i i remember um growing up, seeking out books by authors like Tony Morrison, Maya Angelou. I was obsessed with learning about the black experience because there was no other black people around me. And so there was a solace in that to an extent. How was coming to the UK from Nigeria for you? And does any of that resonate for you? Yeah, no, definitely.

Obviously, growing up in Nigeria, in Lagos, the heat, you know, the vibrancy, the flavors. That was intense and also amazing. and then the transition coming to Hull and it's really cold. And myself and my older brother were like the only two black kids in the boarding school. You know, so that was an interesting cultural shift, I think, to experience. And I was, you know, I was missing things from back home as well. I was missing like certain friendships and food as well,

pigeon English in Nigeria. I was missing all of that. And, you know, it's different because you kind of express yourself. differently here and it was an adjustment to learn that, to not say everything I thought, because I was used to doing that back home, that actually there are more subtle ways of communicating when you're here. So learning all of that as a child was a bit of an adjustment. But within that was discovering books, you know, and discovering friendships and discovering things like horse riding, which I absolutely love doing. And discovering being able to play

hockey and being captain of the netball team and all these really fun experiences that I loved having there that I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere else. So it felt like it was a real privilege to be in that space. And I remember feeling very grateful to my father that, oh, wow, you know, this is a whole another world because my brother got sent to boarding school first and we were super close. Anything he did I wanted to do and I was really competitive with him. So when he first got his BMX bike back home, his red BMX bike, I was, I was, I was like, I want a yellow BMX bike dad. And then when he got sent to Bulls, guys,

I want to go to boarding school. So it was just that thing of like wanting to experience new worlds again, you know, and then within that, this joy of discovering reading. When it comes to experiencing new worlds and the way that reading and writing can help us do that and then depict that in turn, you've said that you're intrigued by combining the everyday

with the surreal in your writing. Where do you think this tendency comes from? How is this flare, this flourish, grown? I think from reading, definitely, but also just like everyday life is weird. You know, if you just look around, it's all so strange, you know, you go to a local park and someone's left like their trainers there and you're wondering what the story is

or someone's left an item of clothing or a piece of jewelry. And you almost start to kind of finish that in your mind, you know. And I'm always looking at eavesdropping as well on conversations and people out and about. So just like unfinished stories, but finding ways to create that sort of strange context around it because it is an aesthetic that intrigues me. It is an aesthetic, that speculative aesthetic that allows you, I think, to do really interesting things with form. But you know, you also have to be able to ground it and anchor it in a way that people can connect with the the characters. You know, so for example, in Spie Gigantula, there's a story that I have in there

about a woman who finds a tiny man in her garden, who she takes hostage and begins to torture him. But they develop this really interesting relationship. And actually, by the time people come to the end of the story, it's a story about loss, it's story about the ways that we grieve and the processes through all of that. But there are elements of surprise within it as well. So, yeah, it's just being able to play for me and finding ways to keep doing it. that. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their

books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Let's move on to your second book, Shelby book, which is Deborah Levy's black vodka. The question I want to ask is how does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love or for lack of it? Well, 10 stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explored these impossible questions and the delicate balance of modern living with razor sharp humor and curiosity.

He tells us why you picked this. And also when you read it, how did it affect you? Yeah. So I picked this because this was very crucial in terms of inspiring my own voice as a short story writer, you know, we touched on developing that, that interest in strangeness that I like. Well, here is a writer that really epitomizes that and reflects that in this collection, which is about love, love across borders and identity across borders and the ways in which we come to the self, the interesting ways that we can come to the self or not. And I love that she does that. And the stories feel they're like vignettes and also quite elliptical.

You know, there's a mystery around some of these stories. story about an ad man who has a hunchback and he's he's out on a day and it's just such a strange piece of writing you know one minute you're at a restaurant with this couple and then he's looking on the floor but suddenly looking through the floor that's become a green pastures with all these creatures so again it's got that element of the kind of abstract and and the surreal to it i just i just love her writing there's a there's an appreciation of craft there there there are elements of surprise in the work, but also just, yeah, again, outsiders. Outsider characters really, I feel, speak to me in a way that makes me feel seen.

And when I was reading her stories, they were just in this collection in particular, just magical, like fables almost, you know. And I just remember feeling so fed by them and just like very excited that this writer existed. It's that thing of discovering a writer who's voice you know you're going to come back to. And wow, how did I not know that she existed? I mean, she was prolific, you know, writing across stage as well, I think. And, you know, somebody that is very much, I think, a writer's writer, someone that writers look up to and really admire in terms of craft.

So, yeah, I just think these stories are just, they're just potent and thought-provoking and strange and moving, you know, and otherworldly. And, yeah, it just, again, it made me want to write. It made me want to write. And I did. I remember finishing that collection and being like, right. I want to craft stories. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'll figure it out. You know, it's just having that encouragement. You know, when you see somebody who is fearless in their approach, it makes you want to try things and explore ideas. You know, you wouldn't have had permission otherwise to do. And I feel like people, you know, like Deborah Levy, you know, like. Tony Morrison, they give you that permission, especially as women, to kind of be really radical in your approach. Well, the craft itself, the word economy, how concise these stories need to be. You mentioned that the outsider, those characters are important.

They're not there for no reason, like might happen when you populate a longer novel. Every single device and choice that's been made has been so deliberate. and it's so rich, and this is a perfect example of just such rich storytelling. What is it about the short story form that then appeal to you to then take on and go forth and write yourself? Well, firstly that there's an end to them.

It's not like a novel where you have to, you better be excited by that idea because you're gonna sit with that novel for a long time. But I think with the short form, it just allows you to create these miniature worlds and make them so potent and hold an audience's attention because you know you're competing with other mediums so you want to be able to do that but I love short stories that you read and you you want to come back to them there's

something about the short form I think that does that you know it just it's so enriching it feeds you you think wow I did not think it was possible to get this from a short story or to get this from a collection and that's what Exactly. Every word has earned its place. Every character earns its place. Every sentence does too. I'm just, and I was just so impressed by these writers being able to do that. Like you said, the economy of it, but also, interestingly enough, the dimensions to it as well, the denseness to it as well, that you're like, this feels like a sleight of hand here. How have you been able to be really economical and taught with your writing, but present this amazing. world that I just can't forget. You know, it's just so encouraging and enriching. I loved it. Once I fell down that rabbit

hole of reading short stories, I think short stories, actually, I credit them with helping me find my voice, with helping me realize, okay, I am an experimental writer. You know, this is what I want to do and this is how I want to do it.

It's so interesting, actually, what you say about the way that these stories stay with you, because you'd think that a longer novel, because you've read it, for longer. You've been in that world for longer. Maybe it would stay with you for longer. And yet, the potency is exactly it. It's often the short stories that I really cannot forget. They're just etched into my mind. And I was only sitting with them for a day, maybe less, probably less. 100%. This is the effect and impact that they have. And like you say, you know, novels do wonderful things too. Or love the novel form as a novelist. But there is, I do think that short stories are very, very special. And

When I go through periods that I'm struggling with the writing process, I can pick up a short story collection, read one or two stories, and feel energized again in a way that, you know, sometimes you can be terrified picking up a novel and thinking, oh, how am I going to execute this with short story? You just feel inspired. You feel like, oh wow, this is the light and bolt on the page. As a writer, what are the differences in difficulties,

transitioning from short fiction to novel length work. Yeah, yeah. So I started working on my novel first. And I did a draft of that and then picked up Dennis Johnson's short story collection because I was like fed up of trying to figure out this novel, which felt like a mountain to me. Read his collection and was, wow, this is amazing. I want to write short stories.

Read Deborah Levy's collection. Wow, this is incredible. I definitely want to write short stories. And then started playing around. playing around with the short form. Once I started one or two, it was like a bug because I had all these ideas. I don't even think I intended to write a collection.

I was basically just trying to make sense of being a young black woman in my 20s, trying to figure life out, working in the arts, feeling that it was just like this incredibly fertile space where I was surrounded by other writers, like producers, illustrators, performance poets, because I was programming for that space a lot. So it meant that I got to travel around the country

and kind of be a bit like an A&R person, like finding new talent. That was my job. So it was a really cool, fun job. And I felt like along with this, I'm also developing my own voice behind the scenes. So that was really wonderful. And again, it just gave me permission to play around.

You know, what's the worst that can happen? And maybe I could be good at this. I had such a voracious appetite for reading. And I just respected writers so much. And I knew that I wanted to do it. But it was just a case of, again, just having the guts to really go there and play around. So that was how I started.

And then once I did that with the short stories, what I found was it gave me confidence to go back to the novel. And then what I did was I saw each chapter of the novel as a kind of contained short stories. story so that I Jedi mind-tricked myself basically to be able to figure out that process. It's time to talk about your third book, which is at the bottom of the river by Jamaica Kincaid. In this selection of prose poems told from the perspective of a young Caribbean girl, Kincaid collected pieces written for the New Yorker and the Paris Review between 1978 and

1982 and firmly established the themes that she would continue to return to in her later work. The loss of childhood, the fractious nature of mother-daughter relationships, the intangible beauty of the natural world and the striving for independence in a colonial landscape. Tell me a little bit about this book. What resonated for you? So this collection I actually picked up, I think in 2016, 17, just before I started working on the stories for Needybrook. Again, it was that thing of, I don't know what I was looking for. I was a little bit scared.

I knew I wanted to take even bigger steps and be even bolder and weirder with nudie brank than I had in Speakerangelo. Speakagangelo was a little bit odd, but the stories were more raw, but I really wanted to push myself and be even more subversive. So I didn't know what I was looking for. And I'd heard about Jamaica Kincaid. So I picked up this collection and it was exactly what I needed. they are kind of like I would describe them as an amalgamation of art and literature.

They feel like paintings, but they're also stories, but they're also like prose poems. So it's kind of like falling into this rabbit hole of creativity, where the landscapes feel, you know, they feel familiar, but then they feel really new as well. And I love that it explored themes of like the mother-daughter relationships, the natural world, all of this was really speaking to me at the time. When it comes to drawing from the world around you, from what you know and then exploring how far you can take that,

I mean, our culture, our heritage is a part of that. You were born in Nigeria, we've just talked very briefly about this before. You moved to the UK-AH-D-8, and your work often explores your heritage as a Nigerian British writer. How important is the influence of these two cultures on your writing? Oh, huge, huge. I mean, I love, being Nigerian and I love being British, you know. When I'm in Nigeria, they're like, oh, English girl. You know, that you can't hide it. But here I'm also slightly other as well.

So I think that that that sense of identity, it's always sort of shifting incrementally and it's really interesting to explore that. For butterfly fish, particularly I was obsessed, literally obsessed with writing about that historical legacy. I remember my father talking to me about the Bidien Kingdom. when I was a kid and how important and amazing it was. And that planted a seed in me. I also remember, you know, Nigerian folk tales and fables and how, you know, depending on who you heard the story from,

the ending might change. Or the character might be something different. You're talking to my mom's Nigerian, half my family in Nigerian. I know because I hear these stories. I'm like, mum, that's not what Auntie said. Yeah, exactly. And she's like, well, this is the story from me. And this is the story.

And you know what? That's okay. Because I love that. Stories. This is it. And there's a kind of magic and elasticity about that, you know. It's almost like Gryot style. The stories change and mutate, you know.

And I just, it's just so, so wonderful. So I kind of wanted to incorporate all of that into butterfly fish, you know, the aspects of oral storytelling that we've just talked about, writing about ancient Benin and brass artefacts because I was fascinated by that stuff and, you know, the histories around that. So I essentially used an artifact to anchor. this intergenerational story across three generations. And that was a really fascinating process, doing the research for it. My father would send me books from back home that I would never have access to anywhere else

because he was like my man on the ground, which was really fun to kind of work with him. And he was so excited that I was writing this book and so proud, you know, it was a really, really lovely thing to be able to, yeah, share ideas with him, talk to him about it, get him to do a bit of research, do my own research. And again, I guess having that distance as well, because I didn't grow up in 18th century beneath, you know, but there was something very exciting to me about reimagining that world. Again, there is something I just think wonderful about creating that aesthetic. You know, we're talking about black history and African history and it's so rich

and a lot of the time when we're taught about it, we're taught about slavery. Yes, that is one aspect. of it, but my frustration was there is so much rich black history that we need to be discussing. So this was my way of responding to that, you know, like look at this incredible history that we have, the Binning Kingdom in Nigeria and what happened and how, you know, people from the West came and couldn't believe that they had created it. So there's power in that. There's power in that legacy. And I felt like, you know, a little badass walking around plotting this story, you know, letting it simmer in my brain for years. So it's hugely important to me,

but also part of the narrative is set in London. And again, it's just a city that means so much to me. You know, it's a city where I discovered who I am, my voice and the arts and what that can do for you as a young person and how that can fuel you. So I wanted to incorporate all of that into the book. It's funny that we were talking about parent-child relationships in relation to at the bottom of the river and it sort of just come up there. When it comes to your father being so proud and wanting to help out with the process of creating this work, is your family proud of your root, of your path of your being a writer? Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, it's funny now because originally I was supposed to be a lawyer,

I studied law. Oh, what a surprise. What a surprise. That's kind of what I was going. The mischief maker of me was like, yeah, no, I'm going to do something different. different. But no, my mum is, my mum is very proud. It's all worked out now. She's quite relieved. But my dad has always been a really big supporter of whatever I wanted to do. You know, he always said, yeah, no, I support you. You know, whatever field you go in, I know,

you're going to do your best and you're going to, you know, you're going to enjoy it. And that's all you can do. Life is, it's important to enjoy what you're passionate about. So, yeah, that's why I thought, no, this is the, I've always written. It's always been there. So it was just a case of getting to a stage where, okay, gave myself commission to do it while juggling other things. And the evidence is there. You've got the receipts because, you know, you're writing about your passion, about your identity.

It's all come together in this novel butterfly fish. And then it went on to win the 2016 Vettitrask Awards. So I'd say that was a very successful. I feel like with half of my family, they've all been like, what is it she does? And what it took was to be on Radio 4 for them to be like, oh okay it was fine it's fine it's fine that's okay and I was like I've been doing this for 10 years I can tell people you know she's on radio four that is so lovely they just need this signify that

they got the fourth book that you have brought to us today is I am I am I am by Maggie O'Farrell told through 17 highly personal stories of narrow brushes with death this book is part memoir part heartfelt exploration of what it means to be alive inspired by her own daughters diagnosis with a severe immunology disorder, O'Farrell looks back at her own life, her own neophatal illness as a child, and the moments where she was forced to look at her own mortality in the face. Why did you pick this? Well, it's just an astonishing book. Firstly, I'm a fan of Maggie O'Farrell's work, so I came to this really excited, not knowing what to expect and it really, really blew me away. It's, it's, I loved Hamnet as well, but it's my favorite Maggi O'Farrell book.

She writes with such candor in this, in this book of essays, but it's really profound as well, you know, she's bringing us into her life and her experiences, these, these near-death experiences, which must have altered her in some way, you know, there's an encounter with a murderer in the, in the first essay where, you know, she's, I think she's 18 at the time and she's working at this hotel and she goes outside to have a hike or walk around and she encounters this man who puts the straps of the binoculars that he's holding around her neck and she cleverly talks her way out of it

and then later on we found out that he killed someone basically using that method. So it's just like, wow, how do you go through something like that and not be affected by it? And similarly with other essays in the book as well, there's a book, I mean there's an essay about being on a plane and it plunging and that fear that you feel. There's an essay about her experience of sickness as a child

and how that affected her. But also, as you rightly mentioned, her daughter navigating this immune disorder that's very, very tricky. So she obviously spends a lot of her time in hospitals. So I very much connected to that because I have a sister with epilepsy and we've spent so much time in and out of hospitals

and navigating what that feels like. And I, in my way, have tried to show my sister how exciting life is, that there are things to, you know, live for and be passionate about in her darkest moments where it's been really, really hard, especially when she was younger. So I just really connected to this book on such a level. And I was just so blown away by her generosity of spirit as a writer to bring us into her world and to show us like these profound essays about life and, you know, that you have to grab life.

You know, you can't take them for granted. And she's so, you know, they're not sentimental, but they're so powerful these essays. So yeah, I just, I was really, really struck by them. I thought about that book for days after I read it for weeks. It's a book that I recommend to any woman I care about, you know, whether it's arts or friends or, you know, women I encounter that, you know, we have an exchange about books. I always mention this book because I just think it's tremendous and she is tremendous as a writer and somebody that I really, really admire.

And it's a book that means a lot to me. So, yeah, I feel emotional talking about it now, actually. How's your sister read it? She hasn't read it. It's a book that, yeah, obviously I've shouted about it. But she's so funny. She's like, oh, yeah, I'll read that. And then she doesn't read it.

But yeah, it's something that, you know, I always recommend to people because I just think, yeah, it makes you see life differently. It makes you not worry about the petty stuff, you know. It puts things into perspective. It makes you hone in on what do I really want to do and who do I really want to spend quality time with and who do I really want to champion, you know, all these important questions. So yeah, if I find myself going through a period where, I don't know, maybe I'm struggling a little bit to remember my purpose, I will pick up this book and boy, does it remind me of what that purpose is. It sounds like, although it's your sister that you're supporting

when you're in and out of hospital, it sounds like it's you who needs the book the most. And that's okay. Yeah, it's about Maggie's scrapes with death. But it doesn't have to be your own near-mist. as it were that it helps you with if you need that perspective you need that perspective yeah absolutely and we do you know because you can get sucked in by so you can get overwhelmed by things you know and especially

sickness it can be it can feel so you can feel so powerless in the moment when there are things that you feel like you can't do to change a situation I remember feeling incredibly frustrated about my sister's health issues and just angry as well like she's such a beautiful person like she's such a beautiful person like she is like I feel like the love of my life. Maybe that's a strange thing to say about your own sister, but like just an incredible person and such a kind person that I used to get really frustrated that she has to deal with this, you know?

So a book like this made me feel seen in a ways that are really, really special and powerful. Sometimes when life feels like it doesn't make sense and it isn't fair, so crucially life is not, it's not fair, I do feel like literature, is the one place where you can see why it might make sense. Why actually, it's okay, it needs to be like this. You mentioned there, the darkness. What was the light that you took from this book? Just her fearlessness, her determination, her sense of self.

There's a strength to her. Every time I read each essay, like, wow, there's a real strength to you. You know who you are. And I'm guessing that, you know, each example, obviously left an imprint and made a mark. And it makes you recognise who you are. It makes you think, okay, this is what I need to do to survive a situation. And I've come through X, Y, Z, 17 near brushes.

You've got to be a bit of an OG to come through 17 near brushes. You know, so, yeah, I think there is that recognition of self and that joy of self. And that's a wonderful thing, especially as a woman, because I think often we're, you know, we're kind of taught to not be like that, to not be confident in that way. Whereas this book does that for me in unexpected ways. So it's not like obviously saying, you know, go, girl, do this.

But there's something about the experiences that she's been through. There's something about how she's learned from it and how she's grown from each one that I feel is really, really inspiring. And of course, she is such an exquisite writer, Maggie. Of course, when the women's people, a couple of years back with Hamnet. Incredible. She is long-listed with marriage portrait this year.

How does it feel to have the decision of this year's winner, partially on your shoulders? Like, what do you think is the real impact of prizes on writers? I mean, the impact is huge. I mean, let's not underestimate. Women's prize is life-changing for writers that are long-listed and shortlisted in particular, and obviously for the winner, because you, you are introduced to a much wider audience.

So it's huge. It is a pressure, which is why I'm glad I share that with my fellow judges and it's not just me. So we all feel a little bit anxious about it, to be honest with you, but they're also kind and they all have a real appreciation for literature, obviously, because they're all, you know, writers. So they know what it's like and what it takes

to, you know, make that sacrifice and face the page. You know, it's not always, easy. So yeah, it's, it's difficult. It's going to be hard to decide the winner. They're all winners, you know, especially, you know, the short list. It's amazing. And what we hope is that, you know, they sort of stay in touch with each other. They become a cohort and there is that sense of community that's fostered because that's, that's really important. And I think that's another thing from the women's prize that maybe perhaps isn't speaking enough about. There is that real sense of community. It's it's amazing. Everybody behind the scenes, they're all brilliant. You know, all the, all the

staff involved in it. They're all just like wonderful and really care about the prize. And, you know, we want that to translate to the cohorts as well so that they have that sense of care and community towards each other and can stay in touch, uplift each other, support each other, because that's really important as well. It's that and you really get a sense of that, of of the camaraderie, the support in a profession, a craft that can be quite isolating. Who do you talk to? Who do you turn to? You've spoken about your struggle with, I quote,

writer's fear rather than writer's block. Can you tell me about how this manifests? Oh my God, yeah. It's just the thing I navigate every now and again, where suddenly I just, I feel like terrified of the page and I don't know why. I feel intimidated by the page. like I can't write.

I can't write at the moment. And it's hard when that happens. It really is. So what I try to do is feed myself through different mediums. So you know, go to the theatre, go to galleries. Because I love art galleries and I love looking at art. And that will inspire me again. Obviously read to, you know, get that inspiration as well.

But it's a process. And I think sometimes it happens if I've had some time away from writing and life, takes precedent because it does. Things get in the way and you need to keep living to have things to write about as well. So it's just that juggle and that hustle, but I guess also sometimes a fatigue because, I mean, I don't know how writers who've written 12 books,

13 books, 15 books have done it. You know, you could get fatigued writing three books and you're like, I need that energy, I need that renewal and that inspiration. And then you worry about craft, you know, you worry about losing your voice. I used to write out of fear as well, interestingly enough. When I first discovered that I had something to say,

I kept writing because I thought, I don't want to lose my voice. It could go at any point. I've been gifted it, but it could be taken away from me. So I would just write out of that sense of like, you never know what's going to happen, you know, and just that passion. But then once I conquer it and I'm back in the world again,

I usually conquer it through feeding myself and just being curious. I think curiosity cuts through so much. and helps with so much. So it's important to like be adventurous, to seek stories out, to seek people out who, you know, who inspire you to go and see other writers talk,

to hear their conversations and know that they struggle too. But I can't tell you what that does for another writer. Because sometimes I think there is the thing where people act like it's all perfect and it's really not. And I'm somebody that loves to debunk all of that. Like I'll tell you the real and how it really is.

I'll tell you the joy, but I'll tell you how it really is as well. And I love to hear it from other people too. Because that makes me feel like, oh, I recognise this experience. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? When you describe your voices, sometimes feeling precarious or fragile, that what you need is to feed it, just like a body when it's feeling a little fragile

and it's feeling a little weak, you need to feed it to give it strength, like power. And power has been an overwhelming theme in all of the voices that we've talked about today. And it's time for us to seek out our final story, which comes from Arundati Roy, and it is the god of small things, a favourite of mine as well, a novel anchored to anguish but fuelled by wit and magic. This is the story of Rahel and Esther, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns

of their blind grandmother's factory and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala, a profound meditation on history and humanity. The god of small things transformed Roy into the literary sensation of the 1990s. Tell us about this book. Why did this resonate with you? I think like most people who picked it up, it was just such a rich, evocative read. It's about this idiosyncratic family that you mentioned with the twins at the heart of it driving this narrative.

And there is a magical quality to it. There is all the things you expect. There is trauma. There is love. There is lost. There are familial secrets at play. There are fractures that happen. But it does have this.

wonderful sense of place and time as well. You know, some of the descriptions are really, really rich. And I just loved it. I just loved her voice and what she did. And I didn't, you know, I'd never been to India. So to kind of get this perspective set at that time, it felt like a window into a different time and place. And I love that.

I love just being like completely and utterly transported. And I just think she's just such an exquisite writer, just such an amazing, amazing voice. And it really stayed with me. And again, it's a book that when I think about writing and craft and what's possible, this is something that comes to mind. It's just, yeah, it's just a magical, powerful and heartbreaking book. I really, really loved it.

I loved what she did with the craft. I love what she did with the characters. They were so memorable. The sense, the like the sense of place. Everything was just really, yeah, very, very well, I think, described and sort of brought to life. Yeah. It's at once so fleshed out.

It's such a fleshy book and also sparkly. It's like it glittered. I remember it glittering. And like this book, your work has been described as having elements of magical realism. Do you use this genre to describe your work? Yeah, people often describe my work in that way. I would say that it's probably speculative.

I would say it's speculative fiction. I would say it's surrealism. And I can see that. why, I mean, those sort of terms all cross over, you know, and there is no, and I kind of like that. I kind of like that depending on who you talk to, it's magic realism or surrealism, or, you know, that's really interesting to me and it shows that the work is, it breathes, you know, it's malleable, it moves, it shifts. And that's a really exciting thing, you know, and it means that hopefully I'm doing something interesting, one would hope, you know. So yeah, it's kind of fun for me to be able to like,

move within that umbrella and that genre and see, you know, what kind of stories I can present or, you know, how I can surprise people. Yeah. Well, it's been really interesting to hear about exploring and playing with form and how interested you are in that. But aside from technique, you have this really vivid and unique imagination. And that's just such a profound and such a natural thing. It comes from within.

do you know which direction your stories are taking or do you sometimes just let your imagination in its purest, rawest form just run wild? Probably the latter. I just let it run wild. I mean, my poor editors, I think that's get the first drafts. But that is really fun for me. So with the first draft of a story, I will have maybe an image in my mind and I will just think, well, how do I create a context around that?

How do I create a world around that? How do I create a narrative around that? And then I'll just play. I'll just get up really early in the mornings and just let my mind run absolutely a mock in my dream state and write these stories. So I won't like have a structured plan of plots. I never do.

Maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe a writer shouldn't say that. But I never do. I have a rough idea of what the story will be about. And then I just follow my instincts because I find that really, really fun. And I worry about stuff like structure when it comes to the second draft. I know that having done it, a lot. I know that I have the quality of writing. It's there. You know, so as a writer,

if you work on the craft, you can trust that that will come. So I know that that will come. It's just about being able to, yeah, flesh out this world, have fun writing indelible characters, because I want to write characters that people go away and think about. I want to write characters that challenge audiences. So my story, Grace Jones, for example, which is about, you know, a Grace Jones impersonator who sets fires, who's recovering from a trauma that she experienced in the past. And she's kind of recreating this trauma. I remember doing an interview and the lady who interviewed me said,

I know that this story's gotten a lot of attention, but I'm not sure I like, I'm not sure I like Sidra. I don't like this main character. I don't approve of what she's done. And for me, I was like, okay, this is really interesting. You know, sometimes people like what you do and sometimes they don't. But what I did like was that, She felt uncomfortable about the character.

She felt for reasons she hadn't quite processed. She felt challenged by it. And I really do love to write messy dark women, especially messy black women, because I think very often we are held to a standard where you're supposed to be perfect. And nobody's like that, you know, like where is the humanity in that?

And it's not even interesting, you know. So I like to make them complex and I like to make them complicated and I like to put them in surprising context because people often don't see our real lives, don't see all that we do. And for me, that is like pushing the boundaries, you know, and it is really, really exciting. So I like to do that. I like to play around with that. What do you hope readers will take from the work?

Wow. I hope that they will feel moved in some way, challenged in some way, and just enjoy storytelling. Just enjoy stories telling from somebody who loves literature. Before we started recording, you actually mentioned that you're in the editing stage. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're editing, what's coming? Yeah, so I'm working on a novel, my fourth book, my second novel, da-da-da, which is terrifying. But I'm having fun with it. And again, I'm trying to push myself.

I never want one book to be exactly like the last one. So hopefully I'm doing interesting things with this work. And yeah, I'm excited. That's the main thing I'm excited about it. I'll use that sound effect again. If you had to choose, finally, one book from your list as a favourite. Which one would it be and why? Oh, my God, they're all incredible.

Why do you put me in this position? Oh, my God. I love them all so much. I have to say Tony Morrison's jazz because it's the book that set me on my part. as a writer and like many other writers, I owe such a debt to her and the legacy that she's left behind and the astonishing body of work that she created. I'm so grateful to her. Yeah, it's just that book changed my life. So yeah, it has to be that. I think if a book changes your life, that is a good reason to make it your number one. Thank you so much, Your Ennisson. It has been

an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I loved it. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.