In today’s National Post Books there’s a profile on me: Thank you to Mark Medley who wrote such a lively piece.<\/p>\n
Pluck of the Irish: Anakana Schofield\u2019s debut is one of the season\u2019s best reads<\/p>\n
When Anakana Schofield was 24 years old, she got braces. A recent theatre school graduate, the aspiring actress coped with a mouthful of metal by picking up a video camera and recording the experience. The resulting half-hour documentary, Bracism, aired on RTE.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like reality TV, way, way before there was actually a thing,\u201d recalls Schofield, now 41, during an interview in a Toronto caf\u00e9 last month. \u201cFor years afterwards, I\u2019d be in the bank, or I\u2019d be on the train, and somebody would say, \u2018I saw your program on the telly! You\u2019re the girl that made the one about the teeth!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very interested in documentary,\u201d she continues. \u201cI\u2019m interested in social anthropology as well. Fiction, for me, is [a] departure \u2026 I\u2019m interested in making s\u2013t up, basically, and this is the place to do it.\u201d
\nRelated<\/p>\n
Malarky, Schofield\u2019s wonderfully deranged debut novel, marries her interests in realism and invention with great results. It tells the story of \u201cOur Woman,\u201d also known as Philomena, an aging farmer\u2019s wife who is slowly coming apart at the seams. The simple life she leads in County Mayo, Ireland, is first threatened then shattered by myriad events: her son\u2019s homosexuality, her husband\u2019s philandering ways, her own sexual awakening, and, eventually, the deaths of both her son and husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a marketing department\u2019s point of view, this is not a dream book,\u201d she deadpans. Yet, \u201cI have great faith in readers,\u201d she adds. \u201cI\u2019m interested in what the novel can become. We know what it can be \u2014 the linear, chronological. As a reader I\u2019m ambitious. And I want to see new things.\u201d<\/p>\n
To read the entire profile click here\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today’s National Post Books there’s a profile on me: Thank you to Mark Medley who wrote such a lively piece. Pluck of the Irish: Anakana Schofield\u2019s debut is one of the season\u2019s best reads When Anakana Schofield was 24 years old, she got braces. A recent theatre school graduate, the aspiring actress coped with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[169,618,748,752,830,942],"class_list":["post-6508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-anakana-schofield","tag-interview","tag-malarky","tag-malarky-novel","tag-national-post","tag-profile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anakanaschofield.com\/website_66900629\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}