Sarah Hall's Literary Journey: From Childhood Tales to Feminist Icons
Renowned author Sarah Hall has opened up about the books and writers that have profoundly influenced her life and career, tracing a path from eerie childhood stories to powerful feminist narratives. In a candid reflection, she reveals how early experiences with language and storytelling laid the groundwork for her acclaimed literary voice.
Earliest Reading Memories and Formative Influences
Hall's earliest reading memories are steeped in the folklore of her Cumbrian upbringing. She recalls her village primary school headteacher recounting terrifying local ghost tales, an experience she describes as formative. Additionally, her mother's sing-song recitations of rhymes like "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's" and her father's repeated readings of the Ant and Bee books created a rich auditory and emotional landscape. Her first independent reading love was The Story of Ferdinand by Leaf and Lawson, a book about a gentle bull that left a lasting impression.
Teenage Transformations and Feminist Awakenings
As a teenager, Hall experienced a pivotal moment with Robert C. O'Brien's Z for Zachariah. Reading it around age 13, she was captivated by the resourceful heroine Ann Burden, who survives a nuclear holocaust and outwits a controlling male scientist. Hall felt fear, anger, and exhilaration, noting how the character's agency and courage upended dogma and patriarchy. She has since passed this novel to her daughter as an "inheritance track," continuing its legacy.
Writers Who Reshaped Perspectives
Angela Carter and Buchi Emecheta played crucial roles in Hall's development, offering powerful lessons on female narratives, creativity, and resistance. She highlights how their works teach readers to avoid submissiveness and stereotypes, turning reactivity into proaction. Hall cites examples like a mother shooting a despotic husband or rewriting a burned manuscript as emblematic of their transformative messages.
Inspirations for Becoming a Writer
Hall credits a long line of poets for teaching her to love the dynamism of language, with Kathleen Jamie being a notable influence. However, it was Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter that switched her circuit to fiction. Reading it after graduating with an English degree while living in the American south, she was drawn to its beguiling middle ground and lack of concern for formal definitions, feeling the settings and culture of 1900s New Orleans come alive.
Books Revisited and Rejected
Despite widespread acclaim, Hall has never finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, finding it lacking in psychological organicness. In contrast, she frequently returns to The Story of Ferdinand, seeing it as a revision of strength in the face of machismo and political provocation. For adult rereads, James Salter serves as her lodestar, appreciated for his truthful, exquisite prose. Meanwhile, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is a book she could never read again, though it led her to Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which she gladly revisits.
Later Discoveries and Current Reads
Hall discovered Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy later in life, overcoming her aversion to historical figure novels. She praises Mantel as a titan of originality who creates new metaphysics for the genre. Currently, Hall is reading Wolves: Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation by L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani for research on a film script. Her comfort read has evolved from a dictionary of lighthouse codes to The Little Book of Humanism by Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson, which offers 2,000 years of wisdom in 250 pages and a message of hope.
Sarah Hall's latest work, Helm, is published in paperback by Faber on 9 April, showcasing the literary depth nurtured by these diverse influences.
