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Edinburgh City Guide - January 2004
Interview: Anna Millar
As up and coming authors go, they don’t get much more prolific than Bangor boy Zane Radcliffe. Here he waxes lyrical about Björk’s faeces, sea-peeping and self fulfilling prophecies .
What course did you study?
I was one of the great unwashed who studied at Queen’s University in Belfast. I took a BA in English Literature, majoring in Feminist writing. It wasn’t an attempt to get in touch with my feminine side, rather, I worked out that I’d be the only guy in a study group of 60 women.
What are your fondest memories?
It has to be all those hours of determined study in the university library. As if. Most of the best student memories have been obscured by copious quantities of subsidised Guinness, though I do remember being stopped by the RUC for being drunk in charge of a sofa. I enjoyed editing the student newspaper, a great excuse to interview all my favourite bands when they played the Student Union (I once had to flush Björk’s number twos from a Uni toilet).
How long have you lived in Edinburgh?
I moved here from London in March 2002 after the first novel – London Iriah – was picked up by Transworld. Bizarrely, I’d written a story about and Irish guy disillusioned with London, who winds up in Edinburgh. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What are your favourite sights in Edinburgh and why?
I can see the Firth of Forth from my bedroom window. It’s not so much a sea view as a ‘sea peep’, but it gives me a reassuring sense of place, particularly since I grew up by the sea. And there’s so much to see and do here. I like the end of year show at the Art college and I try to visit the Filmhouse when I can. I like people-watching in their bar; you get a more eclectic range of characters than you do on any of the screens.
What defines Edinburgh for you?
Zane The Writer: ‘Toasted malt aromas infusing cobbled, potholed wynds.’
Zane The Resident: ‘It smells like Sugar Puffs and the roads bugger your car.’
Would you like to think your work influenced students?
I’d prefer to think my writing entertains and engages students (and people who pay taxes too). In the new novel – Big Jessie – a couple chapters are set in a university and there are a few characters in there with whom students should identify.
What advice would you have for would-be writers?
Don’t talk about the great novel you are going to write. Write it. And write the sort of book that you enjoy reading. It’s much easier than making anguished, aborted attempts at writing the next Man Booker winner. If you do happen to win the Booker, it will be by accident not design.
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