by Sarah Glazer
Amanda Craig, the author of six novels, discussed how she weaves such contemporary issues as inequality and social class into her novels and the experience of being a London novelist.
Her most recent novel, Hearts and Minds, following the lives of several immigrants living in London, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. A leading figure on the London literary scene, Amanda Craig has tackled contemporary topics in her novels including inequality, social class, human trafficking and other social issues in urban life. Hearts and Minds was praised by the Telegraph as “a sympathetic, thought-provoking and deeply moving account of the strange, shifting beast that is our capital.” A.N. Wilson hailed her 1996 novel, A Vicious Circle, by saying that “the greatest novelist under the age of 50 has now stepped onto the stage.” Amanda Craig is also an award-winning journalist and continues to write reviews and journalism for The Guardian and other newspapers. She is currently working on her seventh novel, set in Devon and London. “It’s a novel about a marriage in deep trouble, and about the role money plays in a relationship,” she writes on her blog.
She was in conversation with Catherine Davidson, author of The Priest Fainted, called by Amanda Craig “the most enchanting book about Greece since anything by Lawrence Durrell.” Catherine Davidson currently teaches creative writing at Regents University in London and blogs about writing and life across two cultures at Medium.