11.5.11

SARAH WATERS. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS



Are any of your books autobiographical?
- No. Inevitably, there are bits of me and my experiences in all my books, but if ever I've used small autobiographical touches, it's been in combination with pure fiction, to the extent that those touches have usually ended up morphing into something else entirely. I'm sure all writers are basically the same: we're like Wombles, picking up stuff here and there – some of it our own stuff, some of it our friends' – but putting it to new, occasionally peculiar, but hopefully highly imaginative uses.

Do you think of yourself as a lesbian writer?
- Yes and no. I am very comfortable with the concept of a 'lesbian writer' or a 'lesbian text'. Most of my novels so obviously foreground passions between women that it has made lots of sense to me to invoke the 'lesbian' label. I have many enthusiastic lesbian readers who have been with me right from the start – long before I became popular as a mainstream writer – and I am very grateful to them. At the same time, of course, I don't sit down at my desk every morning thinking, 'I am a lesbian writer'. Most of my working life is spent grappling with words and stories – and at that point I am simply 'a writer', like any other writer. In other words, lesbian passions and issues are there in my books in the same way that they are there in my life: they are both vitally important to me, and completely incidental.

sarahwaters.com

Η Σάρα Ουότερς γεννήθηκε το 1966 στο Νέιτον του Πέμπροουκσαϊρ. Σπούδασε αγγλική λογοτεχνία στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Καντέρμπουρι. Ήδη με το πρώτο της μυθιστόρημα, "Tipping the Velvet" (1998), προκάλεσε το ενδιαφέρον του κοινού και της κριτικής. Με το δεύτερο μυθιστόρημά της, "Affinity" (1999), η "Sunday Times" την ξεχώρισε ως καλύτερη νέα συγγραφέα της χρονιάς. Με το τρίτο της μυθιστόρημα, "Fingersmith" (2002), βρέθηκε στην τελική εξάδα για το Βραβείο Μπούκερ, θέση στην οποία βρέθηκε και με το τέταρτο μυθιστόρημά της, το "The Night Watch" ("Ξαγρυπνώντας", 2006).

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