Writing On Literature

Questions for David Mitchell on the novel Ghostwritten by David Gaston, Zoe Fen Koh, Maki Komatsu, Maria Lebed, Nobuhiko Matsusaka, Jun Ohashi, Erika Yamauchi Tokyo University 12/01/2005 In Ghostwritten, we can’t agree which of your narrators is either the most or least successful. What do you think? And in a third category, which is your favourite? Maybe written characters are similar to acted characters: if you can forget that the illusion that this character on a page (or a movie screen) isn't a 'real' person, then it is successful. I think the most successful characters in GHOSTWRITTEN are those who are culturally closest to me. These are Neil Brose in Hong Kong and Marco in London. The furthest from me,

Questions for Catherine Fox on the novel Angels and Men by Kiyoka Yamagami, Takahiro Kiya, Mai Enomoto, Tomoko Takeda, Yuko Kato, Shunsuke Hiratsuka, Tomoko Masuda, Kate Morris, Zoe Koh, Adriana Hristova, Erika Yamauchi, Jun Ohashi, and Wakana Arai. Part 2 Tokyo University, 25 June 2004 First of all, many thanks for your generous and detailed response to our previous interview. Your answers were very fluent and informative, though there seemed an (almost) general agreement that we'd like to know more about the relationship between feminism and your Christian faith, and how this plays out in the novel Angels and Men. Do you agree with the view 'equal but different' for male and female social roles? What is the difference between

Questions for Catherine Fox on the novel Angels and Men by Kiyoka Yamagami, Takahiro Kiya, Mai Enomoto, Tomoko Takeda, Yuko Kato, Shunsuke Hiratsuka, Tomoko Masuda, Kate Morris, Zoe Koh, Adriana Hristova, Erika Yamauchi Tokyo University, 3 June 2004 Was there someone or something in particular that motivated you to write Angels and Men? I have wanted to write novels for as long as I can remember. The first ideas for Angels and Men came to me in 1986 when I was reading 17th C Quaker tracts and investigating the phenomenon of religious fanaticism. The other motivation was my love affair with the city of Durham. It struck me that there was a gap in the market, and nobody had done

Questions  for Andrew Cowan on the novel Crustaceans by Kouhei Furuya, Yuko Kato, Jun Ohashi, and Takuya Osada. Part 2 Tokyo University, 7 December 2003 First of all, many thanks for your generous response to our previous interview.  Your answers were very helpful and informative, we felt, though with one exception.  It was hard to understand your method of writing. As well as writing and revising each line, do you come back later and revise every line again?  Once you decide on the nature of Euan’s accident, for example, there is clear foreshadowing earlier on.  Why bother with so much earlier revision if you have to come back and revise again later? On the whole, I don’t come back and

Questions  for Andrew Cowan on the novel Crustaceans by Kouhei Furuya, Eri Higuchi, Yuko Kato, Jun Ohashi, Akira Ohkubo, and Takuya Osada. Tokyo University, 6 November 2003 Your book, Pig, was a story about a pig. The word 'crustacean' is quite difficult, unfamiliar, and were you not afraid that the readers will find it difficult to imagine that this novel is about a father-son relationship with this title? Have you ever thought of having another title? No, this was always going to be the title. It has three kinds of resonance for me.  1.  It's a word of private significance for Paul, because it's the first word he imagines teaching his new-born son.  2.  It has seaside connotations. 3. It