International Writers' Stage: Natasha Brown (UK)

Natasha Brown stunned readers and critics alike in 2021 with her debut novel Collection. Here she distinguished herself as a writer with precise and elegant prose. Since then, her second novel The Universal has been longlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize, where she herself sits as the main jury this year.

Complex novels with seriousness and humor

The novel Collection has been compared to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. A tale of the stories we live with – those of race and class, security and freedom, winners and losers. In Collection, a black British woman prepares for a garden party at her boyfriend's wealthy parents. And where the first novel ends with a party, the next one starts with one. The universal is about a group of climate activists who throw a party in Yorkshire. But the party ends abruptly when a man is brutally beaten to death with a gold bar.

At once deeply serious and truly humorous, The Universal demonstrates Natasha Brown's masterful ability to write multi-voiced complex novels with sharp and precise language.

Reader and writer meet in prejudice

When Brown is a guest at International Authors' Stage, the conversation will be about how she explores the relationship between reader and author - and the prejudices and interpretations we carry around with us. Brown describes the contours of her characters, but withholds all superfluous information that could reveal her own assessment of the characters.

She describes it as a break with fiction's desire to guide the reader towards a fixed truth. Instead, Brown explores the neutrality of language, and she describes her books as an interactive experience between reader and author.

Cast

Natasha Brown (b. 1990) is a British author. She grew up in London and studied mathematics at Cambridge. She later worked in the financial sector. In 2021 she made her debut with the novel Samling, and most recently she is current in Danish with the novel Det universelle .