Author Gurnaik Johal has revealed that he initially had no idea Zadie Smith was a literary heavyweight, buying her novel NW purely for its striking cover. The book, he says, changed him as a teenager, leading him to explore authors she recommended, including Elizabeth Strout, George Saunders and Gustave Flaubert.
Johal, whose earliest reading memory is the Guinness Book of Records, also credits short stories with making him want to become a writer. He highlights works by Yiyun Li, Jhumpa Lahiri and Toni Morrison as early influences that made him think differently about reading and writing.
The author admits to initially dismissing Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but later revisiting it and now counting Conrad among his favourite writers. He praises Conrad’s prose style and the scale of ambition in his novels.
Johal’s current read is Larry McMurtry’s epic western Lonesome Dove, which he describes as a comedy of manners set on a cattle drive. For comfort, he turns to Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries, dipping in and out of it on the tube to work.
