Another Author’s Insight: Neil Jordan (1950)

‘Could you talk about the autobiographical aspects of your work?’

‘This person isn’t me,’ he said. . . .

‘All the details might have—what would one call it—a certain remembered authenticity. Some of the events have occurred. But the process of creating a character is the process of letting something emerge that is and isn’t you—a mediator between your experience and whatever it is you call yourself. Another. Which is why the naming is important. The name has to bring a certain magic with it, a set of random associations that will grow to have a life of their own. Which is why I let the name come to me, don’t search it out.’

~ Neil Jordan, Mistaken, in chapter “The Riverside,” p. 259 (Soft Skull Press, 2011)

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