Nick Harkaway
Nick Harkaway
Nick Harkawayis a novelist and commentator. He is the author of the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman; and a non-fiction study of the digital world, The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
enormous room underneath work
I work in our living room, a strange room in a strange, topsy-turvy house. I work underneath this enormous bookshelf.
access great lead supposed work
Digitisation was supposed to lead to a great democratisation of access to creative work.
amazon art dedicated production trust works
Amazon is a corporation, not a philanthropic trust dedicated to the production of works of art and literature.
analyze classic detective filter handy structures work
As I work, I see my writing - each scene, each chapter, each section, each book - in three-act structures and classic myths, and I analyze them through the handy filter of the detective story.
benefit including nor novel novelists suspect wary works
There is not now, nor I suspect will there ever be, a le Carre novel with ninjas in it. Most serious novelists are wary of including ninjas in their writing. That's a shame, because many much-admired works of modern fiction could benefit from a few.
compete competition dad fact great joys pool works
My dad and I compete on the pool table; that's the most important competition of our lives. The fact that I'm writing and it works for me is one of the great joys for him. We talk about writing, and it's great.
time work
When the time comes to work, I work.
legislate million people reach speech understanding voluntary whisper
With true free speech has to come an understanding of when and when not to use it. But you can't legislate that. It must be voluntary - especially in a world where a whisper can reach a million people in an eye blink.
both fascinated human individual
I'm fascinated by human agency - by the process of decision, both in the individual and the mass.
male
I'm a white, middle-aged, married, middle-class male with kids. I couldn't be disenfranchised if I tried.
brooding
I used desperately to want to be a brooding hero from literature, but I'm optimistic, healthy and fair-haired.
nearly stake wrote
I think the reason I wrote screenplays for nearly a decade was because it was my territory. I could stake that out.
connery extremely grew moore movies ridiculous roger sean spies
I grew up on the Roger Moore and Sean Connery Bond movies, so the DNA of my spies is extremely ridiculous and goofy.
constantly incredible
I don't do a lot of research, exactly, but I'm constantly wandering through the world finding things incredible and remembering them.