Caryl Phillips riffs on Wuthering Heights in his new novel
Caryl Phillips knew very early in life that he liked adjectives. He says that he loved sparkling words - glistening, glittering, glimmering.
J. M. Coetzee has said of Caryl Phillips that his body of work had "a single aim: remembering what the West would like to forget." His new novel The Lost Child examines the origins of Heathcliffe, Emily Bronte's mysterious hero, intertwined with a modern story about a troubled single mother living in Yorkshire.
"I have to believe it's going to be solved, otherwise why am I writing? Why am I thinking, why am I talking? If I embraced pessimism then I may as well stop writing." - Caryl Phillips on race relations
The music to close the Caryl Phillips interview:
CD: CHILLY GONZALES: CHAMBERS
Cut # 6: "Solitaire"
Composer and Performer: Chilly Gonzales
Label: GENTLE THREAT Gentle 018
Caryl Phillips's new novel, The Lost Child, is published by Farrar Strauss & Giroux. His book of essays, Colour Me English is published by the New Press.