Amanda Hodgkinson’s debut novel, 22 Britannia Road, is one of the shortlisted books for this year’s New Angle Prize. The novel tells the story of a Polish family re-united in  1946 Ipswich but unable to escape their traumatic war time experiences.

InSuffolk: This is your first novel. What is your writing background ?

Amanda Hodgkinson: I wrote stories and poetry as a child and I was always reading so in a way I was always a writer, though it was not something I thought about much. As a mature student I did a degree in Cultural Studies at what is now UCS (University Campus Suffolk) and while there I joined a creative writing group run by the poet Dr Julian Stannard, a tutor there at the time. It was amazing! The act of sharing my writing was a kind of watershed for me. I realised that this was what I wanted to do with my life. After my degree I applied for a place on the MA in creative writing at UEA. At that time my tutors warned me it was unlikely I’d even get an interview but I desperately wanted to do the MA and with two young children I knew I couldn’t travel far from home so it was Norwich or nothing. I had to submit 5000 words of fiction so I wrote a short story and sent that off. I was offered a place on the course and my determination to be a writer grew from there.

IS: I read that your writing of 22 Britannia Road began with a single image and this is a very visually evocative novel. Do you have a background in the visual arts ?

AH: It did stem from an image yes, a young woman alone in a forest of silver birches. When I write I am thinking in images a lot of the time. After I left school, I did a foundation course in art and my father was an artist so I grew up in a home where visual arts mattered.  I am fascinated with the way words can sketch images for us, how words can bring worlds and emotions to life.

IS: Do you have a personal connection to Ipswich, or to Britannia Road ? Or did you choose Ipswich precisely because it could have been any ordinary British town ?

AH: I love Suffolk as a county. It’s not just a beautiful varied landscape with its agricultural heart and its stunning coastlines but also a place of histories and a place of change. I live in France and if I miss anything from the UK it’s the sound of a Suffolk accent! I lived there for a large chunk of my life so it seemed right to set the novel in a town which held strong emotional memories for me. I did vaguely know there was a Britannia Road in Ipswich but I did not base the road in the novel on it. I had in mind a small road not far from there, high on a hill looking down towards the docks. When I came back to Suffolk for the book’s launch a journalist took me to Britannia Road. He really wanted to go see the road that had inspired me but I said no. I wanted to keep the fictional road as something that belonged to the characters in the book.

IS: Britannia Road strikes me as fundamentally a character driven, psychological, novel. Would it bother you if it was seen or marketed as historical fiction or a World War 2 novel ?

AH: One of the things about having a first novel published, for me at least, was finding out about the marketing side of publishing. I see the novel as you do, a character driven story about love and hope. But it is also historical fiction. Recently I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute a short story for an anthology in America – a collection of World War II fiction – I can see I was chosen because my novel is a World War II novel.  Ultimately I hope 22 Britannia Road can work on many levels for the reader. Historical fiction should touch us because of its relevance to our lives today.Looking into the past should illuminate the present.

IS: Even when the novel is written in the present tense the characters are often still living in the past they can’t escape from. Was it a difficult decision to alternate past and present tenses and did you try different approached before settling on this ?

AH: Because the past has such an effect on the present for the characters – they have been separated for six years and are trying to build a new life together – it seemed really important to me that the actual structure of the novel should reflect this. To begin with I wrote the story chronologically. I knew all about Silvana and Janusz’s families right back to the late nineteenth century!  Stuff that I needed to know but that never went into the novel because it would have been far too long and unfocussed. Then I sat down and thought that the problem of incorporating the past and the present was not a problem after all but a solution. At a certain point in the novel Silvana lays out her story for Janusz ‘like a book’ and for me this was really the point where the structure showed itself as another storyline within the novel. The moment I understood this was the way to tell the story I felt joyful. It was like I’d been standing in a dark room and finally found the light switch! I loved weaving the stories of past and present together.

IS:The traumas of the characters, especially Silvana and Aurek, have many parallels in modern warfare and its aftermath. Did you do much research on such contemporary experiences ?

AH: I’m glad you feel that because it was very much in my mind while I was writing the novel. Yes, I did research the effects of war on our lives today. And of course the long lasting social and psychological effects of war are as devastating today as they ever were…

IS:You live in France now. Will you be able to attend the New Angle Prize Shortlist event ? And what has your nomination for this prize meant for yourself and recognition of 22 Britannia Road ?

AH:I am so honoured to be shortlisted for this prize. Particularly given the quality and strength of the other books on the list. I feel the New Angle Prize is incredibly important for the region and for East Anglia’s ever evolving cultures and literature. Being nominated is a wonderful recognition for my novel and it’s also, as I grew up in Suffolk and my first steps towards being a writer were taken in Ipswich, something deeply personal too. To be included on a short list of East Anglian excellence is something to be proud of.  Will I be at the shortlist event? I’ve already booked the flights. You couldn’t keep me away!

22 Britannia Road is published in paperback by Penguin.