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Interview

Naomi Benaron Interviews Deborah Levy on the writing of Swimming Home

Naomi Benaron, whose Bellwether Prize winning first novel, Running the Rift, is set during the Rwandan genocide, chats with Deborah Levy about her latest novel, Swimming Home.

Naomi: First, I would like to congratulate you on all your honors for Swimming Home: shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize and shortlisted for National Book Awards Author of the Year.

There is a quote from your interview with Gareth Evans that I love: "If I let 'the market' write my books for me and tell me what I think and how you think and what we are like, what kind of conversation would I be having with my readers? What kind of conversation would they be having with me?" In light of this, how do you see your role in terms of changing or influencing the direction of writing and publishing in this sadly corporate world?

Deborah: I didn't really set out to change the direction of writing and publishing. I wrote a book that I knew was worth something because the act of writing it had shaken me to the core. By the time I had finished Swimming Home I had become a different sort of writer to the one I was when I started it.

If a change had happened inside me while I was writing this ...

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