Will Self
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
When I was 17, so I didn't even have to get A-levels.
I didn't want to write like Enid Blyton.
I wanted to write like Dostoevsky.
I didn't even want to write like Evelyn Waugh.
And it was not... My ambitions were so vaunting already...
And were you writing at that stage?
I mean, obviously, it was just rubbish.
The biggest problem for a writer, as you know yourself, is authenticity of voice.
That's why there are very few literary prodigies, youthful prodigies for that reason.
And not just the tragic comedy of childhood.
I was already in too much trouble.
I doubled down on my estrangement and sense of uncanniness in the English class by becoming a heroin addict and being arrested for drugs and charged and convicted.
So I already had a criminal record at the age of 20.