Janan Ganesh takes Edna O'Brien to lunch for the Financial Times:
If anything, she values being left alone to concentrate on her writing. "For all my affability, I am also cold."
You have to look after number one?
"Well no, you have to look after what is right. In the case of work, you have to look after the work. If someone comes into your life that you don't want and keeps nagging you with emails and things, the gate comes down." She mimes a portcullis shutting in front of her face. This is Graham Greene's "splinter of ice": the chill at the heart of the serious novelist. Writers cannot be with you all that much. And even when they are with you, they are not really with you.
You have to look after number one?
"Well no, you have to look after what is right. In the case of work, you have to look after the work. If someone comes into your life that you don't want and keeps nagging you with emails and things, the gate comes down." She mimes a portcullis shutting in front of her face. This is Graham Greene's "splinter of ice": the chill at the heart of the serious novelist. Writers cannot be with you all that much. And even when they are with you, they are not really with you.
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