Australian author Anna Funder spoke to Malavika Velayanikal on her favourite books and authors
Australian author Anna Funder spoke to Malavika Velayanikal on her favourite books and authors
I’ve been incredibly moved by many books since childhood. When I was 10, in school in Australia, we were made to read The Diary Of Anne Frank. I had to read aloud in class the part where Anne Frank is taken away to the concentration camp. I broke down crying — something I was very ashamed of. I think that made me very, very angry with the Germans.
Another of my favourite books while I was growing up is Carson McCullers’s The Member Of The Wedding. I recommend it to all young people as it has an amazing voice about it. It’s the voice of a lost, lonely, pensive, innocent child turning into a woman. She wants to belong, she doesn’t and she can’t. And she can’t tell why.
I read it when I was 14, and while that could be how all 14-year-olds feel, I do believe there’s something more general about that “longing to belong” in the book.
Recently, I just re-read Anna Karenina. It is probably the best novel ever written. Tolstoy is this complete genius. Every time I go back it, I love it. I feel as if I know all the characters and I meet them all the time.
I am currently reading Broken Republic, a collection of three essays by Arundhati Roy. I am just gobsmacked by what she’s describing about the war that’s going on. I am reading her piece about the Maoist fighters in the jungle.
It is very, very powerful and beautifully written. I feel the only way to alert the world to what’s happening is to write a novel about it. And I really wish she would write another novel.
Though I am enjoying her essays, I think a novel by Arundhati Roy is going to be even more powerful than her non-fiction work. Please tell her to write another novel.
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