Susanna Clarke
Susanna Clarke
Susanna Mary Clarkeis an English author best known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 November 1959
convincing magicians
In 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,' I wanted to create the most convincing story of magic and magicians that I could.
wine drunk magic
Magic, madam, is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk.
lying magic magician
I know magicians and I know magic and I say this: all magicians lie and this one more than most.
magic lessons bears
He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him.
curiosity curious magician
It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.
compared jane tale
'Pride and Prejudice' is often compared to 'Cinderella,' but Jane Austen's real 'Cinderella' tale is 'Mansfield Park.'
austen jane trying
I tell stories. I kind of stumbled on that by trying to combine Jane Austen and magic.
becomes english feeling german irish nature pin possible scottish welsh
You can get this feeling of the English or Scottish or Irish or Welsh fairy, but it is by nature very elusive. It would be possible to pin down a German fairy, but the English one just vanishes, becomes the shadow under the trees.
characters expect gone naturally novelist playwright prepared
Nothing, I find, has prepared me for the sight of my own characters walking about. A playwright or screenwriter must expect it; a novelist doesn't and naturally concludes that she has gone mad.
defy fanny gentle given heroines jane subversive supposed utterly
She doesn't do the things heroines are supposed to. Which is rather Jane Austen's point - Fanny is her subversive heroine. She is gentle and self-doubting and utterly feminine; and given the right circumstances, she would defy an army.
good grounding lots putting street stuff
One way of grounding the magic is by putting in lots of stuff about street lamps, carriages, and how difficult it is to get good servants.
century home inclined
I feel very much at home in the early nineteenth century and am not inclined to leave it.
afternoon ageing alan became bought copy fan garden graphic moore novel nuclear saturday
I first became an Alan Moore fan in Covent Garden on a Saturday afternoon in 1987, when I bought a copy of 'Watchmen,' his graphic novel about ageing superheroes and nuclear apocalypse.
lose possible series stretch tv
The phone conversations about a possible TV series of 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' stretch back years, but now that the moment has come, now that I am actually here at Wentworth Woodhouse, I lose my bearings.