Written for The Guardian: In the weeks before our lives changed for ever, my grandfather disappeared and my grandmother became seriously ill. We drove the length of the country through snow and ice to fetch her. Already much reduced by arthritis, she could walk only with great difficulty. She would be staying in…
For The Sunday Times: All childhoods are normal to the children who live them. Back in the 1980s, my siblings and I would arrive at places en masse and not understand the bemused expressions of onlookers as we continued to get out of a trusty old wagon for several minutes longer than seemed reasonable. Of…
Written for The Independent: I remember that we had left our backpacks at Zoo Station and that we were going to save our Deutschmarks by staying out all night. I remember, too, when at last we came into the crumbling old courtyard, that the music was extraordinarily loud – a wall of sound made…
Q&A with author Edward Docx ‘What does it mean to be a writer?’ ‘To give precise and enduring expression to the human experience’ Full article here for the FT. Edward Docx was born in England in 1972. He is the eldest of seven children. He read English Literature at Cambridge. His work has won the…
by Anita Sethi For The Guardian: Full article here. When Edward Docx was 13 years old, his grandmother lay on her deathbed at the family home in Greater Manchester and made a startling revelation to his mother, Lila – they weren’t related by blood. Docx’s mum was dumbfounded but, as if that were not enough,…
This Q & A first appeared here in The Guardian: How did you come to write The Devil’s Garden? Some years ago, I stayed on a river station on the Amazon with some very odd people. Later, in one of the river towns, a woman told me a story about an anthropologist who disappeared…
For The Times on Bob Dylan’s 65th birthday: ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You can see it that way – like a train track. Or maybe a journey on a train track. I guess it does make a certain sort of sense.’ He shrugged. ‘Or at least we could see it that way for a…
In 2012, Picador celebrated its 40th birthday with the publication of The Picador Book of Forty, a collection of essays and stories by Picador authors on the theme of the number forty. In this essay, Edward Docx, author of Self Help and The Devil’s Garden, sums up his favourite novels in a mere forty words. 1. The Great Gatsby, F.…
Written For Prospect Magazine: I was powering along the French autoroute in my truly awful car wishing I had gone into mining precious metals or something when my travelling companion piped up from the passenger seat: “Why are you driving so fast?” It was a good question. We were heading to a small town…
Award-winning writer Edward Docx talks about his new novel The Devil’s Garden
1. How did you research the Devil’s Garden? Do you feel that visiting a place you are writing about is crucial for an author? Personally, I find that there is no substitute for going to a place if you want to write about it. The word ‘author’ is quite close to the word ‘authenticity’…
In Conversation with Picador: 1. Can you summarise The Devil’s Garden in fifty words? It is about love and corruption and ancient tribes and violence and grief and sex and science and religion and ants and anthropology and the clash between the individual and the big opposing forces of the twenty-first century. Most of all it’s about…
This first appeared in The Guardian: Edward Docx’s first novel, The Calligrapher, was published to widespread acclaim in 2003 and has now been translated into eight languages. His second novel, Self Help, published in 2007, was longlisted for the Man Booker prize and went on to win The Geoffrey Faber prize. In 2003 and…
Taken from The Ham and High: A death bed confession about his origins led author Edward Docx to the idea for his new novel, Bridget Galton writes Edward Docx didn’t know his publishers were entering him for the Booker Prize until the longlist was announced. Now, the 34-year-old’s second novel, Self Help, is rubbing literary…
By Louise Jury for The Evening Standard: Edward Docx is one of the brightest young novelists on the Man Booker long list. He found found the richest and most revealing material closest to home… READ MORE>
Written for Time Out Magazine in 2007 Imagine you are the best prison guard in the world. Undisputed number one. Entertained by the Blairs, the Beckhams and Antonio Banderas alike; a chess grand master, a boxer – ex-pro (three belts); kind as the mistletoe fairy, mean as a yoga teacher on the make, dignified as…
For The Telegraph There are some novelists who will tell you that it’s the characters or the plot that cause all the trouble, or the research, or the pacing, or managing point of view, or controlling tone; but you would do better not to believe them. All of these are exasperating. But the thing that…
From The Telegraph: At 35, Edward Docx is the youngest hopeful on the Man Booker longlist. He tells Cassandra Jardine about the family secret that inspired his novel On her deathbed, Edward Docx’s Indian grandmother made a shattering confession. Propped up on pillows at the family’s home in Cheshire, she began talking about…
