Interviews - Five Dials

‘We have an expectation that loss comes all at once.’

Avni Doshi discusses her novel, Burnt Sugar

Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar is a love story: a tale of obsession and betrayal. But not between lovers: between mother and daughter. Their unsettled relationship sp... Read more

‘Another thing that fascinates me: one sentence can reveal so much about a person.’

A conversation with Lydia Davis

This month I read Lydia Davis’s latest, Essays, before our arranged phone conversation. Davis’s writing voice is always articulate and persuasive, especially wh... Read more

‘Climate change is us.The sixth extinction is us. We are at the heart of all of these issues.’

Julian Hoffman on the state of the world

Julian Hoffman’s latest book, Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places, is a cry to see, to examine what we still have, to appreciate what is quickly di... Read more

Speaking to Emilie Pine

The author of Notes to Self on blood, the body and Beckett

As an associate professor of modern drama, Emilie Pine is used to employing the disembodied writing style of academic discourse. The voice comes from afar, or a... Read more

‘Older black women, who writes about that?’

Bernardine Evaristo reveals why she nearly populated her novel, Girl, Woman, Other, with one hundred characters

Bernardine Evaristo is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction. Her other writing includes short fiction, drama, poetry, essays, li... Read more

‘Gayness, queerness, gender plurality, plural pronouns – Africa got there two millennia ago.’

Marlon James on the vast world of Black Leopard, Red Wolf

'War is complicated. Revenge is complicated. These things carry costs. It was very important for me, even though I was writing a fantasy novel, to make it a very grown up book.'

‘How could this possibly be mysterious? Where could this take us?’

A conversation with Tana French

'I’ve looked at criminal investigations through a detective’s eyes six times. But there are a lot of other people involved. There are witnesses, there are victims, there are suspects, there are perpetrators...'

‘We can certainly learn from the past. But it doesn’t mean that anything’s going turn out in the same way.’

A conversation with Antony Beevor

One day I took the train to see historian Antony Beevor in rural Kent. On the drive to his place from Bekesbourne Station, through country lanes, we passed ‘Osw... Read more

‘I was astonished by that silence. The eloquence of the men, the absolute silence of the women.’

A conversation with Pat Barker

In The Silence of the Girls, Booker prizewinning author Pat Barker gives voice to the voiceless characters of The Iliad. We know the men – Agamemnon, Odysseu... Read more

Reading Cesare Pavese

Elizabeth Strout on The Beautiful Summer

How would you describe the appeal of Cesare Pavese’s books? I think the appeal of Pavese’s work comes from the same place most writers’ appeal comes from: th... Read more

‘Writing fiction is a form of travel’

Mohsin Hamid on Exit West, migration, empathy and a certain fantastic fox

Five Dials reached Mohsin Hamid via Skype in his home in Lahore. The connection from British Columbia to Pakistan was not perfect, so after the interview was do... Read more

The Zen of Eminem

When Zadie met Shady. By Zadie Smith

In the face of this kind of misplaced hysteria, good rappers don’t back down. They defend the right to use words in the same way any novelist or filmmaker is free to do. They tell their personal truths.