Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coeis an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources which some feel was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative governments of the 1980s. One claim to fame that Coe...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 August 1961
I sometimes think that we fiction writers lag behind nonfiction counterparts in adventurousness, willingness to tackle forgotten areas of history but... we get there in the end.
So it was primarily a desire to write about that period in one's life rather than that period in history or in British culture or whatever.
I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!
So no, I'm pleased if it's been influential for many readers, but at the time I didn't even know that it was going to have any readers.
I'm shy of comparisons to Dickens because he's one of the absolute greats and it's silly to compare a contemporary novelist with someone.
From our perspective, the session was a success.
Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.
It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.
Everybody is excited by his experience and enthusiasm. Everybody is impressed.
They were written in the early '90s when I was strapped for cash.
The fact that it was a TV sitcom rather than a literary novel is neither here nor there, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, mainly it's because I'm not a writer who's comfortable with writing about periods that I can't remember firsthand.
Also I had financial worries because it took four years to write and we were living off my wife's income all that time, which wasn't very great.
A biographer has to get as emotionally close to his/her subject as possible: otherwise the writing won't come to life at all.