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| Jenni Fagan |
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Jenni Fagan: ‘Maya Angelou taught me that I owed myself hope’
The Scottish author on loving The Hobbit, fairytales, Frankenstein and the shock of A Clockwork Orange
Jenni Fagan
10 July 2026
My earliest reading memory
Fairytales. I was obsessed. I took fairytales very seriously as moral lessons. I soon knew that I’d always help any old lady cross the road, it really is always best to do so.
My favourite book growing up
The Hobbit was my favourite book while growing up. It expanded my understanding of what could be achieved in fiction. I found JRR Tolkien’s world transformative. I felt as if I knew the hobbits, and I so wanted to see the elves. I could hear the crack of fireworks as they turned into dragons that flew overhead.
The writer who changed my mind
Maya Angelou taught me that I owed myself hope. No matter how painful or difficult it was. Her work has such dignity and light. I read all of her work for years and took as many lessons from it as I could. It made me want to step up and continue to try to find a way to create a life that mattered to me.
The book that made me want to be a writer
I was reading the dictionary when I was really quite little; if I found a word I didn’t know I would always go and look it up. Strange thing for a kid to do but I fell in love with language itself.
The book I came back to
I originally found Frankenstein by Mary Shelley too claustrophobic. In recent years I have connected with Shelley in a profound way and I am now writing a modern adaptation of Frankenstein that will be published next year. She was so ahead of her time, she began sci-fi, brought to life such a powerful archetype in the Creature, and while you can see inspirations of, say, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – he used to visit and read it at her father’s house – it was an absolutely personal calling for her to write this story. I am fascinated by her engagement with gnosis, the life force, death and how all the tragedies of her young life were carefully woven together by a formidable intellect. Shelley was only a teenager when she first wrote the book; interestingly, she revisited it and made revisions over decades. Like a master painter, perhaps, who adds a touch of shade and light later on, only to heighten a work’s immortal glow.
The book I reread
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is one of my favourite stories of all time. Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning as an Ungeziefer, some kind of monstrous creature. I think it perfectly encapsulates the relationship between the individual and social structures.
The book I could never read again
Anything by Enid Blyton. Her work has not aged well.
The book I discovered later in life
When I was travelling in Egypt I read The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany and Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz. Both books are intertwined with my memories of staying in downtown Cairo.
The book that changed me as a teenager
I read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess when I was 15 and living in a children’s home. Its protagonist, Alex, was the same age as me. I found the book shocking. The use of “nadsat” (teenage slang) as the language spoken by his “droogs” also showed me that there are many ways to innovate in a novel.
The book I am currently reading
Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir A Hymn to Life. I think she is extraordinary and inspiring.
My comfort read
Poetry: a single stanza in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens, or The Man-Moth by Elizabeth Bishop, or Temptation by Nina Cassian. There are so many poems I return to endlessly, as with a favourite record that never fails to contain something familiar and new at the same time.
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