Frida

"In some ways, this novel is the opposite of Mrs Hemingway in style. It’s wildly extravagant prose, full of exuberance and translated from the French – in its original language it won the Grand prix des lectrices Elle . It’s like wandering through a painting – riotous with colour, overflowing with imagery. I had moments where I almost had to stop reading to take a breath, but it captures something of Frida herself that feels totally right. If you want to be absolutely steeped in her world, you’ll love it. Perhaps another way that a novel differs from a narrative non-fiction – it can embody something of its world in its totality, and make us feel a certain way from its rhythm, its style, almost as if it stretches the story so that we feel its qualities through the experience of reading it. It never ends! I’ve had to have friends telling me to stand down. Put the Dickens book back on the shelf, Emily… But I do think in those early stages there comes a point where if you don’t start putting actual words on paper you might get a bit constipated. The voice has to start coming. I think you have to collect the sparks that research gives you (a painting, a certain kind of fireplace, a fact about 18th century dentists), and when you’ve got enough sparks you can make a start. I’m just balancing that now as I look at book three, the first chapter of which is set in 1948. I’m going to have to brave that first sentence soon."