A. L. Kennedy enchanted us again at our Faces and Places reading circles in February. Gertrud Szamosi interviewed her.

This isn’t your first and hopefully not your last visit to Hungary. Why do you keep coming back?

Sadly, this is at least partly because I’m asked and I like travelling in general. But the more I see of Hungary, the more interesting it is. It was probably the first European country where I felt there were many cultural similarities with Scotland. And that whole Mittle Europa thing is very enticing – as Britain deconstructs what’s left of its cultural heritage.

Have you read any Hungarian literature?

Not a lot is available. I like Csath and Krasnahorkai. There can be a problem with some translations, so we may not get the best of people. There are others I’m less sure of, mainly because of the translations.

The heroine of the novel, Jennifer is an emotionally numb woman who as a strategy of survival isolates herself from others; she lives with flat-mates who do not interfere with her life, she has neither friends nor relatives, until she meets Martin, who is in many ways her surreal double. Are you revisiting the traditional Scottish literary theme of the double?

I hadn’t intended to. I don’t know if this is the classic Scottish double – they usually involve a real confrontation between Good and Evil and an examination of which is which. Martin and Jennifer are more two people who suit each other and complete each other – which would just be a romantic ideal.

As the mysterious Martin regains his memory it turns out that he is Cyrano de Bergerac, who for most of us is only known as a character in Rostand’s play. Why Cyrano and what is the role of this temporally and culturally displaced hero in the novel?

I was fascinated by his life once I’d found out that he wasn’t a fictional character. He’s very interesting as a man and his writing is wonderful. I began the novel with the idea that I would pick up on his themes and explore them while giving him and extra year of life – he said he wanted to live 100 years and didn’t really come very close to that. I suppose within the novel he slightly allows us to view our time through alien eyes – but I didn’t want to play too heavily on that.

The appearance of Cyrano playfully subverts, transgresses the dividing lines between life and death, real and fantastic. In addition to the topic the narrative technique that you employ very often self-consciously foregrounds the performative nature of textuality; the act of narration becomes a magic act that tries to confess, seduce, heal etc. Do you see yourself as a magic realist writer?

This book is probably the only one you could describe as magic realist. But I’m not that convinced by these categories. Even the books that seem “real” – if they are fiction – are fictional, not real at all. And the act of making something of words on paper will always be magical. So anyone who writes fiction is doing magic, it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. We try to deal with something true by telling lies.

Are you happy with different critical labels attached to your writings (postmodern, postcolonial, feminist)?

I do my work and academics and critics have whatever conversations they want to have – classifications have no effect on me.

In spite of the fact that your books feature as set texts on university courses and you are included in numerous academic text books on Scottish literature you never read academic criticism. What is wrong with the “literary establishment”?

There’s nothing wrong with it, it just has no bearing on what I do and it bores me. I would rather talk about writing and books I enjoy, or not talk about books at all. I think a great deal of literary theory is just elevated monomaniac opinion – so why give it such weight? If this stands between the reader and the writer, then it’s not a good thing – the idea that a reader can’t “understand” a book unless they have some kind of context or interpretation is absurd. Readers and listeners have been understanding books and stories and poems for millennia – literary criticism in its current form has barely been around for a century. It’s a nice pastime, but it has very little to do with books, beyond colouring the style of newspaper reviews.

Your earlier short story that has already been translated into Hungarian, A Perfect Possession is built on a dramatic monologue where the parent-narrator captures and destroys the child with the sheer force of its insidious voice. The power of language seem to be a central topic of your writing, hence the story also demonstrates the diabolic nature of artistic creativity, yet in So I am Glad the divine and liberating aspects of writing are foregrounded. Are these things essentially different, or are they just the two sides of the same coin?

Language is powerful. It can define your rights, or condemn you to death, declare your love, threaten you, betray you – it’s like any other power, it can be used for good or ill. Equally, the imagination can create both angels and monsters. But I would rather encourage imagination that suppresses it – that’s a kind of death in life and it leaves it powerless in the face of those who create the monsters, or try to make us their idea of angels.

In the course of the novel there seems to be a constant shift between personal and social issues with up-to-date reference to politics, which of the two is more important for you? Do you actually believe that politics can influence the life of the individual?

Both are important. Politics influences every element of our lives – sometimes subtly, sometimes violently. My bus service is worse because we are spending our money on the occupation of Iraq. Mothers in Iraq give birth to deformed children because of the depleted uranium we drop there – it’s all a question of degree. Some thing is more survivable. I can take a cab – the mothers have to bury their kids.

The poetic exploration of language, the sheer delight in language that your writings reveal is fascinating. This is especially striking at an age of communication where the meaning of words is getting lost and very often we use them to hide ourselves, our feelings. This is the case with Jennifer, who is a professional media liar; she lends her voice to adverts, exploits herself and others, as a result of which she develops a deep sense of revulsion for others and herself. As a writer do you feel responsible for the influence of your writing? How important is it to be concerned with moral issues?

People are very good at using language and very good at picking up when they’re being lied to. It’s not that language loses its meaning; the meaning simply changes, or becomes ironic. For example, most speeches by Tony Blair condemning terror can be viewed entirely as condemnations of his own actions, they need no rewriting. I care about language and its health and impact – but it’s in the nature of the general public to renew, change and subvert language and propaganda. Our education system would have to deteriorate even further before we were entirely vulnerable to propagated lies.

We are living in a culture that is highly unfictional; world of reality shows, the fashion of travel and cookery books, celebrity confessions, autobiographies. Does this necessarily change the audience and the writer?

No. People tell each other stories – that’s a relationship that doesn’t change. The conversation between the reader and the writer stays the same, because people talk to each other in the same ways and the same registers, according to occasion. The mass media presentation of fake realities only makes this more important to preserve.

When and why did you decide to become a writer?

I didn’t decide, I just can’t do anything else.

One of the characters in the American writer, John Barth’s short story studies literature in order to find out what makes good literature and tries to “find the key to a good story”. Have you got the key?

There is no key. That’s the key. We are all beginners, always.

As a writer where did your major literary influence come from?

Everything I’ve ever read. Everything I’ve ever been exposed to that involved words – broadcasts, conversations, comedy, song lyrics. Everything.

Who are you favourite Scottish writers and why do you like them?

R.L. Stevenson and Alasdair Gray. Stevenson was a very fine writer and ultimately lived a very inspiring life. Alasdair is another very fine writer and fine human being.

Do you think that being a Scottish writer has helped your career, or is it more of a burden having to fit the prevailing stereotypes about Scottishness and Scottish writing?

I don’t have to fit anyone’s stereotypes – that all happens automatically in the media and criticism. I am who I am and happen to come from this one country and not another. I was lucky in having access to education and training in using my own language with confidence. I was lucky in having relative freedom of expression. Other writers in other countries are less fortunate.

When do you use Scottish dialect, Scottish voices in your works?

When it’s appropriate to the character I use dialect, not only Scottish dialect. I make whatever voice suits the character I’m dealing with.

What are the main differences between Scottish and British/English writing?

I think it’s very hard to generalise like that. The proportion of English writing that England celebrates tends to look to America for influence, rather than Europe – but to Middle Class America – tends to be middle class, unemotional, unphysical, and not much concerned with moral or spiritual questions, slightly unwilling to communicate. But that doesn’t really represent all English writing. Scottish writing could be represented as the reverse, but again, that would be a generalisation.

Why are contemporary Scottish writers so popular?

I don’t know if they are. And I don’t know why. Accidents of marketing are hard to explain.

What is your next book about?

The Second World War.