You don't have to wait for someone to give you permission to write: Esther Freud

Esther Freud, the great-granddaughter of the famous Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, trained as an actress and later as a writer based in London. She is also the niece of Clement Freud, a German-born British politician.  

Esther's first semi-autobiographical novel Hideous Kinky (1992) – which was also made into a film in 1999 starring Kate Winslet – was based on her childhood spent in Morocco with her mother and sister. Esther was born into an immigrant family and travelled frequently from a young age. Her mother hailed from Ireland and migrated to London, while her father's family arrived in England from Germany and Austria in the 1930s. 

After publishing her second book she was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists. Her other novels include The Sea House, Lucky Break and Mr Mac and Me and most recently, I Couldn't Love You More. Her first full-length play Stitchers was produced at The Jermyn St Theatre in 2018 and in 2019 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Esther is currently in Dhaka attending the four-day-long 10th Dhaka Lit Fest which came to a close on Sunday. She was a speaker at two of the sessions at the festival. On the third day of the festival, Esther Freud talked to The Business Standard and shared stories about her journey as a writer.

You came to Bangladesh five years ago. Can you tell us about your experiences in the country, so far, and what has been different this time? What do you like about these trips and attending the festival? 

I enjoyed my first visit (in 2017) and I think the festival is very well-organised and they are very generous in terms of how they bring people together. And I love meeting so many people from all over the world from South Asia, New York, and Europe. I enjoyed talking to them and attending the sessions. 

But the first time I didn't get to see as much of Dhaka as I would like. This time though, yesterday, I got a chance to visit Old Dhaka – we rode down by the docks, saw the boats and the ferries come by, and visited the temples, and I really enjoyed it. 

The traffic is crazy, the first time I was just amazed. But now I am used to it, in fact, I was expecting it this time. 

From a theatre artist to a writer, can you tell us about that transition? What inspired you to become a writer? 

When I was little, I used to become totally obsessed with stories - particularly the Norse myths. I became so involved in the whole idea of the battle of Ragnarok, the antics of Loki and the wars, that I actually believed that the battle of Ragnarok was about to happen. 

I remember I was so caught up in it, which may be an indicator that telling stories was what I was meant to be doing. I became an actress, which is a way of telling stories, and then I started to write out of real pleasure and I would say that's the way I started. 

The transition was natural. When I started to write, I was still an actress. By the time I was halfway through my first novel, I was like 'I want to finish this.' Then I stopped acting and took the time to finish the novel.  Then I was doing a little bit of both.

Soon my acting life became my job and even though I enjoyed it, it always seemed like pressure and, secretly, for my own pleasure, I was writing. So writing is still my great pleasure and so when writers ever complain that writing is so hard, then I am like you have no idea, you should have tried to be an actress first. 

You don't have to wait for someone to give you permission to write. You can write whenever you want, wherever you are, and most importantly, all the characters are in your control.  

As a writer, how do you decide which story to tell and which ones to leave out?

I think that's a very hard question for every writer; to make these decisions. So the best possible scenario is you have one single idea and you are totally gripped by this idea.  But sometimes you have a good idea, and when you start to work with that, you have another great idea. And then after some time, you have another idea. 

And that's really hard, because then when you start working with every one of them, maybe you won't finish anything. I go through this sometimes when I have so many doubts; about which idea I should really focus on. It's horrible, I hate it so much. I am the happiest when I have just one idea. 

This has happened to me before. When I started writing a book , I had a better idea and I thought to myself 'I should start working on the new idea, I can go back to that other book anytime, it's fine.' But you know what, I never picked up those books.  

Like Hideous Kinky, your second novel Peerless Flats has similar characters – an aimless mother and two sisters; the plot is set 10 years after the first book. Why did you decide to write your second novel? 

Because I was concerned about my family. I never thought I would use the same names though, I just thought it would make it very difficult for us. It is very much, as you said, a continuation of Hideous Kinky.

You have a house in Walberswick, and I believe The Seahouse is based on that house. Your protagonists are mostly  girls; young girls searching for their identity, for a safe place to belong. I feel like in your works too, you keep looking for yourself, almost like self-discovery. Do you agree with that? 

My family is my love, but not necessarily my safe place to belong. I talk about a place, an actual physical place like the village Walberswick, that you mentioned, which is actually very close to my heart. 

[Esther's grandparents had migrated there, when they arrived in Britain from Germany in the 1930s. Lucien Freud, Esther's father, was rebellious to the point that he preferred not to introduce his children to his parents. But Esther had rebelled on her own part and decided to be nostalgic, be attached to the memories and the places, by loving the things her father had left behind].

Your plots are comparatively linear but the characters you portray are detailed. Their change of moods and the way you describe your characters is almost picturesque. As if you are painting them. Where does that come from? Is it your training in theatre or the influence of your painter father, or just the urge for self-discovery?

It is not so much self-discovery but more of an examination.  And also like an investigation. It is about the issues that I have discovered already; but then I want to kind of play with them, investigate further, concentrate and pay attention to the small details. 

For example, in my latest book, I Could Not Love You More, I mentioned a pub where Rosaleen and Mr Felix Lichtman meet. I had actually been to that pub once. As I was writing, I was imagining visually, I remember the stained glass doors. 

But if I haven't ever been to a place about what I want to write, I try to imagine a place where I can set a scene. And then it gets even harder, so I have to make it more detailed, to make it believable for myself. So actually more details are given to it to make it convincing. 

So it's a very active process where sometimes I am acting myself as the character. If my character is pulling a door, I am actually physically pulling it with my arm on my desk as I write the scene.

What is that one book that you recently read, you would like to suggest to our readers?

There is a lovely book that I read a year or two ago - The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri. It's about a Syrian couple who were trying to come to England. It's a beautifully-told story and it gives a little bit of insight into the realities of leaving your home and travelling and migrating. It's a lot about memories, what you can leave behind and what you can bring with you.