Kate Atkinson, novelist

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for her 1995 debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and has won the Costa Novel Award twice, for Life After Life in 2013 and for A God in Ruins two years later. Born in York in 1951, she was the only child of a couple who ran a medical and surgical supplies shop. She began to write after she had failed her doctorate at Dundee University and had given birth to two daughters. She took on a wide range of jobs while writing short stories for women's magazines, and did not publish her first book until she was in her early 40s. Her mid-career reinvention as a writer of detective fiction has seen her publish four novels starring her sleuth Jackson Brodie, with another one in the pipeline. She lives in Edinburgh, has two grown-up daughters, and two grandchildren. BOOK CHOICE: The Collected Poems and Letters of Emily Dickenson LUXURY ITEM: A 500 year old, mature oak tree FAVOURITE TRACK: Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.7	I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.
0:08.0	Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take
0:12.7	with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:15.8	This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and for right reasons the
0:21.1	music is shorter than the original broadcast.
0:24.0	I hope you enjoy listening.
0:30.2	Music
0:46.8	My cast away this week is Kate Atkinson, an author who thrills fans and critics alike.
0:52.4	Her best-selling novels are distinguished by their inventive narrative structures and intricate,
0:57.5	masterfully wrote plots.
0:59.6	Her career began on a high, her debut novel behind the scenes at the museum won the
1:03.8	Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995.
1:06.9	Since then she's won the cost and novel prize twice for life after life and a god in ruins
1:12.7	and her Jackson Brody detective series was adapted for TV.
1:16.9	Born and brought up in York her parents ran a medical and surgical supplies shop.
1:22.0	An only child she was a voracious reader so much so that her local library gave her an
1:27.3	adult card so she could take out more books. She began writing her short stories in her 30s,
1:33.1	publishing her first novel in her early 40s. Time, secrets, memory, family and loss are recurring
1:39.9	motifs in her work. She describes the writing process as very mysterious. I don't question it
1:46.3	anymore. I just think I'll start and we'll get somewhere. Kate Atkinson, welcome to
1:51.3	The End of the day. Thank you. Lovely to be here. Tell me a little bit more about that unconscious
	...

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