Philip Hensher: ‘I don’t know why anyone would go for Darcy when they could have Bingley’
Philip Hensher is the author of several novels and many short stories. He also wrote the libretto for Thomas Adès’s opera Powder Her Face and is currently professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University. His 2008 novel The Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize and Scenes From Early Life was awarded the 2013 Ondaatje prize. Born in south London, he grew up in Sheffield, the setting for his latest book, The Friendly Ones (4th Estate, £14.99).
This isn’t your first state-of-the-nation novel based on two families living in the same street in Sheffield: it was also the scenario for The Northern Clemency. What made you revisit this idea?
One of the things that I really wanted to talk about was the immigrant experience, which is why one of the families in the book is Bangladeshi. It is something we don’t really talk about and is very much in my mind as I’m married to a Bangladeshi. I think in England we often pride ourselves on getting on with people who are first- or second-generation immigrants but it’s almost at the cost of not knowing very much about them.
Because we like to pretend there’s no difference between us?
That’s right, we’re terrified of asking that question “Where are you from?” I actually think “Where is your family originally from?” is a perfectly OK question but people are frightened of asking it, so we don’t find things out about each other. For instance, it was really only when I met Zaved [Mahmood, Hensher’s husband] that I started to hear about something else I write about in this book, which is what actually happened in Bangladesh in 1971 [the Bengali genocide at the hands of the Pakistani military]. I’d always had Bengali and Indian friends, but it never really occurred to me to ask, “What did your family go through?”
This isn’t your first state-of-the-nation novel based on two families living in the same street in Sheffield: it was also the scenario for The Northern Clemency. What made you revisit this idea?
One of the things that I really wanted to talk about was the immigrant experience, which is why one of the families in the book is Bangladeshi. It is something we don’t really talk about and is very much in my mind as I’m married to a Bangladeshi. I think in England we often pride ourselves on getting on with people who are first- or second-generation immigrants but it’s almost at the cost of not knowing very much about them.
Because we like to pretend there’s no difference between us?
That’s right, we’re terrified of asking that question “Where are you from?” I actually think “Where is your family originally from?” is a perfectly OK question but people are frightened of asking it, so we don’t find things out about each other. For instance, it was really only when I met Zaved [Mahmood, Hensher’s husband] that I started to hear about something else I write about in this book, which is what actually happened in Bangladesh in 1971 [the Bengali genocide at the hands of the Pakistani military]. I’d always had Bengali and Indian friends, but it never really occurred to me to ask, “What did your family go through?”
Source: theguardian
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