For more about the author, including critical perspectives and in-depth biographies, visit the British Council’s web pages on Naomi Alderman.
Photograph © BBC Radio 4
Ellah Allfrey speaks with Naomi Alderman, one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
For more about the author, including critical perspectives and in-depth biographies, visit the British Council’s web pages on Naomi Alderman.
Photograph © BBC Radio 4
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Naomi Alderman is the author of three novels: Disobedience, The Lessons and The Liars' Gospel. She writers and designs computer games and it co-creator of Zombies, Run!, the best-selling iPhone fitness game and audio adventure. A professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University, she has been paired with Margaret Atwood in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. She is currently working on her fourth novel.
More about the author →‘They’re the interchangeable anonymous people we encounter on our daily commute, those whose humanity we cannot acknowledge.’
Naomi Alderman shares five songs she loves to write to.
‘It is not often, even in Hendon, that one witnesses a miracle.’
‘When we find results that seem to make no sense, we should not be surprised or alarmed.’
‘Thank you, God,’ said the boys, ‘for not making me a woman.’ ‘Thank you, God,’ said the girls, ‘for making me according to Your will.’
‘I thought that this must be the sort of plane that crashes. What were a few more dead, travelling to the city of the dead?’
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