Talking to Margaret Drabble
The much honored British novelist became famous in the 1960's for her stories of young mothers who felt trapped by convention. Her dissections of the middle class made her Britain's unofficial chronicler of bourgeois angst. Drabble has written about infidelity, national malaise, and her ambivalence toward her mother. Strained relationships seem to be a theme with Drabble, who doesn't speak to her sister, the writer A.S. Byatt, and calls her writing "unreadable."
Drabble's latest novel, The Red Queen, is a complete change of scenery and subject. It takes place in 18th-century Seoul, Korea, and is based on the life of an actual princess. Drabble recently let fly her opposition to the Iraq war in a scathing piece for the London Telegraph. Don't be put off, read it to the end.