Q: Favourite all time novel?
A: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Q: Favourite film?
A: Equal first place: Some Like It Hot and My Dog Skip
Q: Favourite poetry collection?
A: Poem for the Day edited by Nicholas Albery – ‘a poem a day keeps the doctor away’ (research from Bristol University)
Q: Favourite song?
A: Blondie’s Call Me
Q: Favourite play?
A: Twelfth Night
Q: Has “Festival Fever” hit Bath yet?
A: Yes – tickets are selling like hot cakes. For the first time this year we’re trying out a bigger venue for a couple of the events - we’re putting Children’s Laureate Jacqueline Wilson and Ladies’ Detective Agency No 1 author Alexander McCall Smith in the Forum – both selling fantastically well, and we’ve had to move Margaret Atwood out of the Guildhall and into the Assembly Rooms.
Q: What’s it like being Director of Bath Literature Festival?
A: Nerve-wracking at times but really good fun especially during the Festival.
Q: What is this year’s Festival about?
A: The theme is Home and Abroad – it’s about families and nations, boundaries and borders, exile and belonging, individuals and society, love, friendship and politics.
Q: Who’s going to be there?
A: Loads and loads of novelists, poets, memoirists, scientists, war reporters … Please visit the website www.bathlitfest.org.uk
Q: How do you programme?
A: It’s a mixture of pursuing writers whose work I’m particularly interested in and whose work particularly suits the theme of the Festival and finding out from publishers what’s coming hot off the presses, and generally keeping an ear to the ground. We are very happy to hear from writers directly.
Q: What are you most excited about in this year’s Festival?
A: As the Festival approaches excitement changes day by day – but perhaps I’ll just mention our international authors – Merete Morken Andersen and Jan Kjaerstad from Norway, Croatian exile Dubravka Ugresic, whose novel The Ministry of Pain has just been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award, Native Canadian poet Sky Dancer and Israeli poet Amir Or. And we’re all on tenterhooks to read our two Festival commissioned poems: ‘Home’ from Fiona Sampson and ‘Abroad’ from John Burnside.
Sarah LeFanu is a writer and broadcaster. Her study of feminism and science fiction, In the Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction 1840-1985, is published by The Women's Press and she has edited several collections of short stories, most recently for Serpent's Tail. Her biography of the writer Rose Macaulay, was published in June 2003 to excellent reviews. She is working on her new book, a memoir about her family's colonial links with Africa.
Interview by www.literaturesouthwest.co.uk
Biog from www.greeneheaton.co.uk
photo: Richard H Smith
