Albertine Clarke

Albertine Clarke received an MFA in fiction from the University of Florida and studied English Literature at the University of Edinburgh where she won the Lewis Edwards Memorial prize for creative writing. Raised in London, she now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Clarke's debut novel is The Body Builders.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

Right now, I’m reading Septology by Jon Fosse. It’s great, very long and very meditative, and tells the story of an ageing Norwegian painter living in a tiny fishing village. I like books that I can tarry with when I’m supposed to be doing other things, and Septology provides that. I also lost it for a couple of days and found it in my bed, so I feel that I’ve absorbed part of it through my skin.

Before that, I read The Hitch by Sarah Levine. It was very funny, and I read the whole thing in a couple of days. There’s a flip kind of conceptual humor that I find off-putting in literature, and although she verges on it, the earnestness of the ending bought it back for me. It’s also just a very unusual book.

Before that, I read George Saunders’ new novel Vigil, which I didn’t like very much, although I’m a huge fan of his, and The Adversary by Emmanuel Carrère. The Adversary altered me permanently. I can never go back to the person I was before I read that book. It’s about a man who kills his wife and children, and Carrère befriends him to try and figure out why. If you like narrative nonfiction that reads like a brilliant novel, I recommend any of Carrère’s work, although they can be so dark they verge on upsetting.

Finally, when I finish Septology, I’m looking forward to reading Marie Ndiaye’s The Witch. I read That Time of the Year recently and I loved it; she has such a subtle and unnerving sense of the uncanny.

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Q&A with Albertine Clarke.

My Book, The Movie: The Body Builders.

--Marshal Zeringue