Aminatta Forna was born in Glasgow, raised in Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom and now divides her time between London and Sierra Leone. Formerly an award winning journalist for BBC Television (1989-99), she is now a full-time writer. Her recent published works include
Ancestor Stones, a novel set in West Africa, and
The Devil that Danced on the Water, a memoir of her dissident father and her country. Her new novel is
The Memory of Love, a story about friendship, war and obsessive love.
From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the
Financial Times:
What’s the strangest thing you’ve done when researching a book?
I temporarily became a surgeon for Memory of Love. I spent two weeks in an operating theatre, watching amputations, and I loved it.
Which literary character most resembles you?
Pi in Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. I was once a little boy before I had to become a grown-up woman.
Who are your literary influences?
Michael Ondaatje, for the scale of his stories and his extraordinary structures.
Read
the complete Q & A.
--Marshal Zeringue
