EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL

The Clarke Award-winning author on her new time travel novel

- Jonathan Wright

BIODATA

From Merville, British Columbia

Greatest Hits Pandemic novel Station Eleven (2014) was recently adapted for TV. The Glass Hotel (2020) dealt with the collapse of a Ponzi scheme.

Random Fact It was a big deal for Mandel to win the Clarke, at least in part because Margaret Atwood won the inaugural award. “She’s the reigning queen of Canadian literature.”

WHEN SFX SPEAKS TO EMILY ST JOHN Mandel, she has yet to settle on a tidy “elevator pitch” to describe new novel Sea Of Tranquility. “I’m going to meander a little bit,” she says, apologising with a smile before embarking on a description that takes in pandemics, art, “what it means to live an honourable life”, time travel and the simulation hypothesis.

“It’s very much about the nature of reality, and the realities that we create for ourselves, and broadly speaking the difficulties of life,” she eventually concludes. This may not be the most succinct précis, but it does give an overview of a novel that, employing a structure similar to David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, is complex and richly rewarding.