Anita Shreve: One Minute Interview

Where are you now and what can you see? I am in an apartment on the seventh floor in Boston. I can see a very old stone church and its front window.

What are you currently reading? The Gathering (by Anne Enright) about a tragic happening in the life of an Irish family – possibly the best way to reduce it.

Choose a favourite author and say why you admire him/her? My favourite is Shirley Hazzard, and I admire her because she wrote the best novel I’ve ever read called The Transit of Venus. It’s essentially a love story written in gorgeous prose, a story of thwarted love which has a brilliant ending.

Describe the room where you usually write? I live both in Boston and in Maine; currently I’m writing in the very small kitchen of the Boston apartment because construction is going on next door, and I am hidden in a little nook so I can’t hear them. The room where I write in Maine looks out to the Atlantic.

Which fictional character most resembles you? I’m not sure I can really answer that as I’d have to make a mental sweep through all the things I’ve read, which is something I’m no longer capable of doing. However, I do greatly admire Caro who is the heroine from the The Transit of Venus. She has backbone and great history behind her, and yet she loves desperately.

Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature? I think we’ve all admired Nelson Mandela. I admire him so much because of the extraordinary things he did and for how long he suffered.

Anita Shreve’s latest novel, “The Lives of Stella Bain”, is published by Little, Brown