Lionel Shriver talks to Suzi Feay

Bestselling novelist and journalist Lionel Shriver discusses her latest novel, Mania, a reflection on the policing of opinion and intellect that imagines a world in which intellectual meritocracy is a heresy.

The novel is set in a future not too distant to our own in which the Mental Parity Movement holds sway. The worst thing you can do is call someone stupid. Everyone is equally clever and you cannot discriminate on the basis of intelligence. Exams and grades are discarded, children are expelled for use of the ‘s’ word and you don’t need a qualification to be a doctor. Best friends Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposite sides of this culture war. Pearson’s determination to hang on to the ‘old bigoted’ way of thinking endangers her job, safety and family.

Shriver’s novels include the Orange Prize-winning We Need to Talk about Kevin, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029 – 2047, and The Motion of the Body Through Space. Her journalism has featured in The Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Here she talks to journalist and reviewer for the FT Suzi Feay.