Books

ILB: Paul Harding

Born in 1967 in Massachusetts, the Guggenheim Fellow is an alumnus of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he began his 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, Tinkers.

Image for ILB: Paul Harding
Paul Harding

Born in 1967 in Massachusetts, the Guggenheim Fellow is an alumnus of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he began his 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, Tinkers.

Describe yourself with three words starting with the same letter.

Dogged, dumbfounded, delighted.

When/where do you write?

I write whenever there’s time, wherever I am. Ideally, I write in the morning, in my study, but I write in planes, hotel rooms, trains, airports, wherever.

Your favourite character?

Of my own? I like Gilbert the Hermit, from Tinkers.

What’s more difficult – starting or finishing a book?

Finishing.

Complete this phrase: “I got off the train in Berlin and standing on the platform were…”

David Bowie, Brian Eno and Iggy Pop.

Choose a famous person and recommend to her/him any reading available today.

I’d recommend Joseph Mitchell’s collection Up in the Old Hotel to Keith Richards.

Your favourite literary character?

At the moment I’m enthralled with the narrator from Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album.

Sep 16, 19:30, “Looking back on a life of love and loss in New England”