Stay excellent, Emma Thompson:
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
I wasn’t sure how to answer this one so I discussed it with my 12-year-old daughter. She suggested Plato. I was impressed. So Plato it is. I think I’d want to ask him how he’d imagine life had changed by 2012.
Have you ever written to an author? Did he or she write back?
I wrote to René Goscinny when I was 7 or 8, a fan letter about Asterix. He wrote back, saying that he was very proud to have made a little English girl laugh.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party and inviting three writers. Who’s on the list?
Sappho, for a bit of ancient gender politics; Aphra Behn for theater gossip; and George Eliot because everyone who knew her said she was fascinating. All women, because they know how to get talking about the nitty-gritty so quickly and are less prone to telling anecdotes. I’d have gone for Jane Austen if I weren’t convinced she’d just have a soft-boiled egg and leave early.
Definitely click through to see what books she’s got on her nightstand.
