'Hope is mandatory'
‘I saw this eccentric Dickens place and thought, why not? If I had not made that capricious decision, fundamentally based on oysters, Dickens would never have answered this question. There would have been no Demon Copperhead, I promise you. When people think they make their own destiny, they're full of it...
It felt supernatural, but it was made of a combination of all the things in that room. As a person obsessed with class, I always clicked with Dickens, because of his championing of the underdog. The other element of magic was probably my sleep deprivation after a gruelling book tour...
My job is to find the inspiring bits and hand them over to you in a way that makes you feel like a different person. The difference between pessimism and optimism is finding the right ending. I believe that hope is not optional. Hope is mandatory. Hope is a duty. When you give up hope you disconnect from any investment in a better future. And that's not fair to the kids. Ultimately, I'm a mammaw (grandma), I've got to do this for the kids...'
Barbara Kingsolver, author of 18 books, including the novels The Bean Trees, Flight Behaviour, the Poisonwood Bible and Demon Copperhead, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction, in The Times.
