Tell me about your latest novel, Thirst, and its subtitle, ‘A novel of the hydrosphere’. It’s set on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, 160,000sq km of ocean-crashed desert, littered with bones and shipwrecks. It sounds fascinating
A visit to Namibia some years ago got me thinking about how humans are withdrawing water from aquifers at an unprecedented rate, as well as impacting the planet’s total water (thus “hydrosphere”) in many other ways. It seems like something that will produce significant conflict, and that’s the basis of the story.
You grew up partly in the west of Ireland. Tell us more about your Irish connections
My mother grew up on a farm in north Kerry. I’d often be there, helping save the hay. My brother worked for Kerry Foods, and I taught writing for a while at the University of Limerick. I have a little house in Glengarriff, where I sometimes go to write.
You have a unique or distinct perspective on Irish writing. What strikes you?
Cromwell by Brendan Kennelly (a cousin and schoolmate of my mother’s) was a big influence on The Last King of Scotland, my first novel. On mart days, I used to go into John B’s in Listowel with my uncle. Later, at Cambridge, I came into contact with the poet Paul Muldoon.
There is mention in Thirst of Irish involvement in empire and a minister for local communities who is a ‘member of a flat-capped Kerry dynasty of political gombeens’. This sounds like insider knowledge! You are best known, however, for your appreciation of Africa, most famously The Last King of Scotland (1998), made into an Oscar-winning film in 2006
Couldn’t possibly comment on the gombeens, must have invented them. Last King the movie was amazing to be involved in, not least having a cameo in it. Guess I was trying to show how the British union intersected with empire. Possibly something of that in Thirst, too.
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Give us a quick run-through of your other novels: Ladysmith (1999), Zanzibar (2002) and Turbulence (2009); and the nonfiction book Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika (2004)
Ladysmith involves the role of the Irish republicans who fought in the Boer war, as well as Ascendancy figures such as Kitchener. Zanzibar is about the pre-9/11 outrages of al-Qaeda in Africa. Mimi and Toutou concerns with a comic episode in the first World War. Turbulence, that’s about the D-day weather forecast, in which a report from Blacksod Point in Mayo caused the delay in invasion from June 5th to 6th.
Has teaching creative writing (now at University of East Anglia in England) enriched your own work?
Wonderful to have been exposed there to the work of many brilliant young writers – including many Irish ones, such as Tim MacGabhann, Rory Gleeson and Ferdia Lennon.
Which projects are you working on?
Ah well, just pondering right now.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
John B’s. Also Joyce’s tower in Sandycove.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Simplify, but wish I could hear it myself.
Who do you admire the most?
Nelson Mandela. Hardest thing is to disabuse oneself of one’s own authority; he did that to bring peace to South Africa.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
Abolish anything Trump passes.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Book: Eye of the Beholder by Emma Bamford; Film: Civil War by Alex Garland; Podcast: A Killing on the Cape by Keren Schiffman.
Which public event affected you most?
The Congo wars 1990-2002. My novel Freight Dogs was written out of rage that the death from these conflicts (three to five million) hardly registered on the global consciousness.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
The Mahale Mountains in Tanzania. Ancestral home of the Holoholo people, now almost completely disappeared; see Mimi and Toutou.
Your most treasured possession?
My great-grandfather’s letters back from Ladysmith, origin of my novel of that name.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
Too many. Now have three lock-ups full of books, need to shift some. Any offers please apply.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
In 1922, at the Majestic hotel in Paris, Proust, Joyce, Picasso, Stravinsky and Diaghilev sat down to dinner (see A Night at the Majestic by Richard Davenport-Hines). In London in the 1840s, Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, the Carlyles, and Wordsworth gathered (see A Sultry Month by Alethea Hayter). May I combine these, if The Irish Times is paying?
The best and worst things about where you live?
Norwich, east of England. Best thing is, it’s not very English, more Dutch maybe. Bit like Cork city, obliquely angled against the rest of the country. Worst thing: known as the death of ambition, exactly because it’s a very nice place to live.
What is your favourite quotation?
Novalis – “It is certain that my conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it”. Hope you agree.
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Widmerpool in Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time. Met many people like him, including Boris Johnson. Once sat next to me at a funeral.
A book to make me laugh?
Ditto. Resisted reading it for many years, thinking it was just about posh Brits. Yup, but very funny, chiming bells when you’ve kicked around a bit. Christmas time, I often reread it. Good if you have the flu!
A book that might move me to tears?
Paul Muldoon’s poem Wind and Tree, which imagines the effect of wind upon boughs, but finds a solace all can recognise. “Yet by my broken bones I tell new weather.”
Thirst is published by W&N
