CONTENTS
Tim Hannigan
Tim Hannigan was born in Penzance. After leaving school he trained as a chef and used sweaty summers of kitchen work to fund long winters wandering in Asia and the Middle East. Eventually, in an attempt to escape the kitchen, he signed up to study journalism at the University of Gloucestershire, and then shipped out to Indonesia where he turned to freelance travel writing and photography. His first book, Murder in the Hindu Kush, a biography of an ill-fated 19th century explorer, was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize.When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?
I think I always wanted to be a writer. I’ve been writing, in some form or other, as long as I can remember.
What’s your writing ambition?
To be able to continue telling untold stories about people, places and historical episodes, and to not have to one day knuckle down and get a real job.
If you could meet any writer from any time and bend their ear for an hour who would it be and why?
Anyone with a double interest in books and outdoorsy stuff has to spend at least a couple of youthful years obsessed with Ernest Hemingway, as both a writer and a role-model. These days I’m far less enamoured with his lifestyle, and slightly less dazzled by his literary style. But there’s still no one else I’d rather have a drink with…
In what way would you like your life to be different?
I wouldn’t change anything – in terms of what I’ve done and what I do, though naturally, a little more money would be nice!
What’s the best thing that’s happened to you in the last ten years?
The great cumulative mass of travelling I’ve done. Without the travelling there wouldn’t be the ideas, and without the ideas there wouldn’t be the writing.
What is it you love about writing?
The solid feeling of confidence when you’re doing it smoothly, swiftly, and proficiently – writing as craft. And then the thrilling, electrifying sensation in those occasional quicksilver moments when it turns into something more – writing as alchemy.
What’s the best thing you’ve ever written?
That’s an impossible question to answer! There are things I wrote when I was 17 that I thought were masterful at the time; I can’t read them now without cringing. I dare say the stuff I’m currently proud of won’t look quite so good a decade from now.
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
The act of writing itself – when it’s going well. If you’re writing history there are times when you’re in “the zone” and you can somehow manage to write and research simultaneously. That’s a great feeling – just like when you’re teaching and every part of your lesson plan is working perfectly, or when you’re cooking in a restaurant kitchen and everything comes together and you ride the service rush like a wave. I strongly believe that writing is first and foremost a craft; for all its undeniable artistic and creative potential, you’ll never make art without a craftsman’s skills.
What is your favourite book title?
A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. That title promises wonderful things, and by god does the book deliver!
What writers do you most admire and why?
As both a stylist, and a writer about place, Bruce Chatwin tops them all. For me style is by far the most important aspect of good writing. Structure, plot, pace, characterisation – all the other stuff is irrelevant if the style is poor. Bruce Chatwin’s style is magnificent. I think of him as a sort of Ernest Hemingway for grown-ups in that sense. He’s also unsurpassed as a writer about place – he had the knack for spotting the single detail which conveys all the necessary imagery and atmosphere.
My first role-model as a history writer, meanwhile, is William Dalrymple. He has a wonderful ability to turn heavyweight research into eminently readable books without ever dumbing down. He is also unafraid of making judgements, and is comfortable enough with his subjects to neither tie himself in knots of post-colonial guilt, nor to commit unforgivable orientalist howlers…
E-books? The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?
It’s not a very comfortable time right now, but then people also freaked out when they invented paperbacks, don’t forget…
People will always read, and people will always write, and once the current technological tempest dies down I think most readers will realise that there will always be a huge difference between professionally commissioned, written and edited books, and the deluge of other stuff. Commercially published books will always exist, whatever format they are delivered in.
Do you prefer to read or write?
The two are entirely symbiotic. I don’t see how anyone would ever want to write without having a love of reading. I used to be a chef: would you trust a chef who doesn’t enjoy eating?
What are you most looking forward to?
The start of the next journey.
Desert island books – which three would you take?
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling – unfashionable, politically incorrect, but brim-full of joy. I can read it over and over without ever getting bored.
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin – to be honest, I’d be happy enough with just the first page and its impeccable nailing of the Alice Springs scene. Style and travel writing at its very best.
The Way of the World by Nicolas Bouvier – It’s got the joy of the first and the style of the second, and if after reading it you don’t immediately want to traverse grand transcontinental spaces and hang out with gypsies, then you have no soul!
What do you do to overcome writers’ block?
When it comes simply to getting the words out, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had writers’ block, and when it comes to writing fiction, I don’t think I’d ever sit down to work if I wasn’t in the mood. But when you’re trying to turn archive material and historical information into a succinct, readable chapter you sometimes get in a terrible tangle – at those moments a long walk or bike ride usually works, or if you’re on a deadline then a cup of tea and a biscuit might help!
What’s the best part of a journey?
The way that movement gives a shape to time.
