Kerry Hudson Interviewed by Simon Kövesi

Award-winning novelist Kerry Hudson talks about her memoir of growing up in a working-class home and of her return to the towns she grew up in to find out what being poor really means in Britain today.

Hudson grew up with her single mother and was always on the move. She attended nine primary schools and five secondaries and lived in bed and breakfast and council flats. Today, she is an award-winning novelist with a secure home and able to travel where she likes. She describes herself as often caught between two worlds.

Hudson’s Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma won the Scottish First Book Award and Thirst, her second novel, won the prestigious Prix Femina Etranger. She founded the WoMentoring project, which offers free mentoring to underrepresented female writers. Here she talks to Simon Kövesi, professor of English literature at Oxford Brookes University. His book James Kelman, a study of the Glaswegian Booker-winning novelist, was shortlisted for a Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year award in 2008. His most recent book John Clare: Nature, Criticism and History was published in 2017.

Presented by the Department of English and Modern Languages, Oxford Brookes University